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THE SECRET OF
THE GOLDEN FLOWER

A LAMA1ST VAJRY-MANDALA
To be studied in preparation for meditation

THE SECRET OF
THE GOLDEN FLOWER

A CHINESE BOOK OF LIFE

Translated and explained by

RICHARD WILHELM

with a European Commentary by

C. G. JUNG

With Eleven Plates and Four Text Illustrations

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.

BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.

First published - 1931

Second impression 1932

Third impression 1 934.

Fourth impression 1937

Fifth impression 1942

Sixth impression 1945

Seventh impression 1947

Translated into English by

CARY F. BAYNES

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
LUND HUMPHRIES
LONDON * BRADFORD

CONTENTS

TEXT AND EXPLANATION BY RICHARD

WILHELM

PAGE

Origin and Contents of the T'ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih 3

1. Origins of the Book .....

2. The Psychological and Cosmological Premises of the

Text*

Translation of the T'ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih .

1. Heavenly Consciousness (the Heart)

2. The Primordial Spirit and the Conscious Spirit .

3. Circulation of the Light and Protection of the Centre

4. Circulation of the Light and Making the Breathing

Rhythmical ......

5. Mistakes During the Circulation of the Light

6. Confirmatory Experiences During the Circulation of

the Light .......

7. The Living Manner of the Circulation of the Light

8. A Magic Spell for the Far Journey

Remarks .......

Summary of the Chinese Concepts on which is based
the idea of the Golden Flower or Immortal Body

COMMENTARY BY C. G. JUNG

Introduction ........ 77

1. Difficulties Encountered by a European in Trying to

Understand the East ...... 77

2. Modern Psychology Offers a Possibility of Under-

standing ........ 83

The Fundamental Concepts ..... 94

1. TheTao 94

2, The Circular Movement and the Centre ... 96

11
21

26
34

44
50

54
57
59

Phenomena of the Way ....

1 . The Disintegration of Consciousness .

2. Animus and Anima ....

The Detachment of the Consciousness from
Object ......

The Fulfilment .....

Conclusion .......

Examples of European Mandalas.

Description of the Plates

Appendix : In Memory of Richard Wilhelm

THE

PAGE

106
106
114

121
128
136
137
138

139

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The original German edition of The Secret of the Golden Flower,
of which the following is the authorized English translation,
appeared first in the autumn of 1929. On March 1st, 1930,
Richard Wilhelm died. In May, 1930, memorial services in his
honour were held in Munich, and Jung was asked to deliver the
principal address. The latter finds an appropriate place in the
English version, 1 which is published a year or more after the
co-author's death. The address will be welcomed, not only for
what it tells the reader of Wilhelm, but for the further light it
throws on the standpoint of the East.

The relation of the West to Eastern thought is a highly
paradoxical and confusing one. On the one side, as Jung points
out, the East creeps in among us by the back door of the
unconscious, and strongly influences us in perverted forms, and
on the other we repel it with violent prejudice as concerned with
a fine-spun metaphysics that is poisonous to the scientific mind.

If anyone is in doubt as to how far the East influences us in
secret ways, let him but briefly investigate the fields covered
to-day by what is called " occult thought ". Millions of people
are included in these movements and Eastern ideas dominate
all of them. Since there is nowhere any sign of a psychological
understanding of the phenomena on which the ideas are based,
they undergo a complete twisting and are a real menace in our
world.

A partial, realization of what is going on in this direction,
together with the Westerner's native ignorance and mistrust of
the world of inner experience, build up the prejudice against the
reality of Eastern wisdom. When the wisdom of the Chinese is
laid before a Westerner, he is very likely to ask with a sceptical
lift of the brows why such profound wisdom did not save China
from its present horrors. Of course, he does not stop to think that
the Chinese asks with an equal scepticism why the much boasted
scientific knowledge of the West, not to mention its equally boasted
Christian ethics, did not save it from a World War. But as a
matter of fact, present conditions in China do not invalidate
Chinese wisdom, nor does the Great War prove the futility of
science. In both cases we are dealing with the negative sides of
the principles under which East and West live, and it has not yet
been given, either to individuals or to nations, to manage the

1 See Appendix, p. 139.

A Vll

vices of their virtues. Mastery of the inner world, with a relative
contempt for the outer, must inevitably lead to great catastrophes.
Mastery of the outer world, to the exclusion of the inner, delivers
us over to the daemonic forces of the latter and keeps us barbaric
despite all outward forms of culture. The solution cannot be
fnund either in deriding Eastern spirituality as impotent, or by
mistrusting science as a destroyer of humanity. We have to see
that the spirit must lean on science as its guide in the world of
reality, and that science must turn to the spirit for the meaning
of life.

This is the point of view established in The Secret of the Golden
Flower. Through the combined efforts of Wilhelm and Jung we
have for the first time a way of understanding and appreciating
Eastern wisdom which satisfies all sides of our minds. It has
been taken out of metaphysics and placed in psychological
experience. We approach it with an entirely new tool, and are
protected from the perversions the East undergoes at the hands
of the cult-mongers of the West. At the same time, its meaning
for us is greatly deepened when we know that, despite the gulf
separating us from the East, we follow exactly similar paths when
once we give heed to the inner world.

But this book not only gives us a new approach to the East,
it also strengthens the point of view evolving in the West with
respect to the psyche. The reshaping of values in progress to-day
forces the modern man out of a nursery-world of collective
traditions into an adult's world of individual choice. He knows
that his choice and his fate now turn upon his understanding of
himself. Much has been taught him in recent years about the
hitherto unsuspected elements in his psyche, but the emphasis
is all too often on the static side alone, so that he finds himself
possessed of little more than an inventory of contents, the nature
of which serves to burden him with a sense of weariness rather than
to spur him on to master the problems that confront him. Yet
it is precisely the need of understanding himself in terms of change
and renewal which most grips the imagination of modern man.
Having seen the world of matter disappear before his scientific
eye and reappear as a world of energy, he comes to ask himself
a bold question ; does he not contain within his psyche a store
of unexplored forces, which, if rightly understood, would give
him a new vision of himself and help safeguard the future for
him ? In this book his question is answered from two widely
different sources, an ancient Chinese yoga system and analytical
psychology. Stripped of its archaic setting, The Secret of the
Golden Flomer is the secret of the powers of growth latent in the
psyche, and these same powers as they reveal themselves in the
minds of Western men also form the theme of Jung's commentary.

viii

In the commentary he has shown the profound psychological
development resulting from the right relationship to the forces
within the psyche.

In the German edition Jung's commentary comes first,
followed by Wilhelm's exposition of the text, and then by the
text itself. At the author's request, the order has been changed
so that his commentary follows the text.

The Chinese words in this edition are in the Anglicized form.
For making the necessary transcriptions, I am indebted to
Mr. Arthur VValey, and to Colonel Egerton of Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner and Co. The latter has been kind enough to give his
personal attention to the editing of my manuscript.

As a possible aid in keeping in mind the relationships between
the various Chinese concepts such as ksing-ming, kuei-shcn, etc.,
F have added two summaries, one written and one diagrammatic.

Fortunately for me, I have made this translation under the
supervision of Dr. Jung, and to that fact, and to the further aid
I have received from Mrs. Jung, I owe any success I may have
had in meeting the difficulties presented.

It has also been my privilege to have the completed manuscript
read and criticized by Dr. Erla Rodakiewicz, and for her invaluable
assistance I am deeply grateful.

Cary F. Baynes.

Zurich,

March, J 931.

TEXT AND EXPLANATION

RICHARD WILHELM

ORIGIN AND CONTENTS OF THE T'AI I CHIN

HUA TSUNG CHIH

1. Origins of the Book

The book comes from an esoteric circle in China.
For a long time it was transmitted orally, and then in
writing ; the first printing is from the ChHen-Lung period
(eighteenth century). Finally, a thousand copies of it
were reprinted in Peking in 1920, together with the Hui
Ming Cking, and were divided among a small group of
people who, in the opinion of the editor, understood the
questions discussed. In this way I was able to get a
copy. The new printing and circulation of the little
book was due to a new religious movement growing out
of the exigencies of the political and economic conditions
in China. There have been formed a series of secret sects
whose effort it is to achieve by the practice of secret
traditions from ancient times a state of soul lifting them
above all the misery of life. The methods used are magical
writing, prayer, sacrifice, etc., and, in addition to these,
widely prevalent mediumistic seances, by means of which
direct connection with the gods and the dead is sought.
Experiments are also made with the planchette, 1 the
flying spirit pencil as the Chinese call it.

But side by side with these practices, there exists
an esoteric movement which has devoted itself with
energy to the psychological method, that is meditation,

1 It is a curious feet that the man who circulated this text had written for
him by the planchette a preface by Lu Tzu, an adept of the T'ang dynasty, to
whom these teachings are accredited. This preface certainly deviates very widely
from the thoughts given in the book ; it is flat and colourless, like the majority
of such productions.

yoga practice. The followers of this method, in contra-
distinction to the European " yogis " to whom these
Eastern practices are only a form of sport, achieve almost
without exception the central experience. Thus it can
be said that, as far as the Chinese mentality is concerned,
a completely assured method of attaining definite psychic
experiences is commanded. (It must be noted that, as
C. G. Jung very correctly points out, Chinese mentality,
at least up to very recent times, has been essentially
different in some fundamental respects from that of
Europeans.) Besides the release from the fetters of an
illusory outer world, there are many other goals striven
for by the different sects. Those on the highest level
use this release by meditation, for the purpose of seeking
the Buddhist Nirvana, or, as for example in the present
book, they teach that by the union of the spiritual principle
in men to the correlated psychogenetic forces one can
prepare for the possibility of life after death, not only
as a shadow-being doomed to decay, but as a conscious
spirit. In addition, and often in connection with this
idea, there are schools of thought which try by means
of this meditation to exert a psyehic influence on certain
vegetative animal processes. (As Europeans we w r ould
speak here of the endocrine gland-system.) This influence
is intended to strengthen, rejuvenate, and normalize the
life-processes, so that even death will be overcome in
such a way that it fits in as a harmonious ending of life.
The spiritual principle, now fitted for an independent
continuation of life in the spirit-body, created out of its
own forces, deserts the earthly body, which remains
behind as a drying shell like that abandoned by a cicada.
The lower strata of these sects sought in this way to
acquire magic powers, the ability to banish evil spirits
and disease, and here talismans, word and written charms

play their part. Sometimes this sort of thing results in
mass-psyehoses which then find expression in religious
or political unrest, as, for example, the Boxer movement.
Recently, the unmistakable syncretist tendency of
Taoism is shown in the fact that within its institutions
members of all of the five world-religions (Confucianism,
Taoism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity —
even Judaism comes in occasionally for special mention)
are included without having to break away from their
respective religious communities.

Having thus briefly described the background out
of which such movements have grown up in our time,
a word must be said as to the sources from which the
teachings of the book- in question arise. Very remarkable
discoveries come to light, and we find that these precepts
are much older than their written form. The T'ai I Chin
Htm Tsung Chih x can be traced back to the seventeenth
century as having been printed on wooden tablets. The
author describes having found an incomplete copy dating
from that time in the Liu Li Ch'ang, the old street of
dealers in books and antiquities in Peking, and tells how
he filled it out later from a friend's book. But the oral
tradition goes back even further than that, to the religion
of the Golden Elixir of Life (Chin Tan Chiao), which
developed in the T'ang period in the eighth century.
The founder is said to have been the well-known Taoist
adept, Lu Yen (Lii Tung-pin), counted later by folk-lore
as one of the eight immortals, about whom in the course
of time a rich store of myths has gathered. This sect,
like all religions, native and foreign, met with tolerance
and encouragement in the T'ang period and greatly

1 The Secret of the Golden Flower (Tat I Chin Hua Tsung Chih), whose title
was changed to Ch'ang Shing Shu (The Art of Prolonging Human Life), by the
Chinese publisher of this edition.

increased in numbers, but,, as it was always an esoteric
and secret religion, in the course of time it began to suffer
persecution because of members being suspected of
political intrigues. Again and again, its adherents were
persecuted by a hostile government, lastly in an extremely
cruel way by the Manchus, just before their own fall. 1
Many members have turned to the Christian religion, and
all, even if they have not actually entered the church,
are friendly toward it.

Our book gives the best available account of the
religion of the Golden Elixir of Life (Chin Tan Chiao).
The sayings are attributed to Lii Yen, whose other name
was Lii Tung-pin, or Lii, the Guest of the Cavern. He
lived at the end of the eighth, and at the beginning of
the ninth centurv, and was bom in the vear a.d. 755.
To his savings a later commentary has been added, but
it springs from the same tradition.

Whence did Lii get his esoteric, secret lore ? He
himself attributes its origin to Kuan Yin-hsi, the Master
Yin-hsi of the Pass (Kuan, i.e. Han Ku Pass), for whom,
according to tradition, Lao Tzii wrote down his Tao
Te Ching. As a matter of fact, there are to be found in
the system a great many thoughts taken from the esoteric,
veiled, mystical teaching in the Tao T6 Ching. If we
compare, for example, the " gods in the valley " with
the " valley-spirit " of Lao Tzu, the two are found to be
identical. But while Taoism degenerated more and
more in the Han period in an external wizardry, due to
the fact that the Taoist court magicians were seeking to
find by alchemy the philosopher's stone which would
create gold out of the baser metals and lend men physical
immortality, Lii Yens movement represented a reform.
The aichemistic signs became symbols of psychological

1 In the year 1891, 15,000 members were killed by Manehu hirelings.

processes. In this respect, there was a close approach
to the original ideas of Lao Tzu. The latter, however,
was altogether a free-thinker, and his follower, Chuang
Tzii, scorned all the hocus-pocus of yoga practice, nature-
healers, and seekers after the elixir of life, although he
himself, of course, practised meditation and attained by
means of it that view of unity upon which he founded
his later, intellectually developed system. In Lii Yen,
however, there was a certain faith, a religious trend,
which, stimulated by Buddhism, convinced him of the
illusory quality of all external things, but in a way clearly
different from Buddhism. He seeks, with all his might,
the fixed pole in the whirl of phenomena, where the
adept can attain eternal life, a thought absolutely foreign
to Buddhism, which denies every substantial ego.

Nevertheless, the influence of Mahay ana Buddhism,
which at that time dominated thought in China, is not
to be underrated. Buddhist sutras are cited time and
again. In our text, indeed, this influence is even greater
than can be assumed to have been the case in the Chin
Tan Chiao in general. In the second half of the third
section, explicit reference is made to the method known
as " fixating contemplation " (Chik Kuan), and the latter
is a purely Buddhist method which was practised in the
T'ten T'ai School of Chih K'aL

From this point on, there is to be observed a certain
break in the sequence of thought in our essay. On the
one hand, the cultivation of the " Golden Flower " is
further described, but, on the other hand, there appear
purely Buddhist ideas which repudiate the world and
emphatically push the goal towards Nirvana. Then
follow several sections l which have scarcely more value

1 These sections are omitted from the present translation.— (R. W.)

than gleanings, that is, if one considers the spiritually
high level and strict sequence of the work as a whole.
Moreover, the work towards an inner rebirth by means
of contact with the circulation of the Light, and the
creation of the divine seed-kernel, is only described in
its first stages, although the later stages are named as
the goal. (Compare the Hsii Ming Fang of Liu Hua Hang
where these later stages are more carefully explained.)
Therefore, we cannot escape the suspicion that a portion
of the manuscript has actually been lost, and substitutions
made from other sources. If that is so, it would explain
the afore-mentioned break in continuity and the fall in
level of the parts not translated.

An unprejudiced reading will bring to notice the fact
that these two sources, Taoism and Buddhism, do not
suffice to cover the whole range of thought : the form
of Confucianism which is based on the I Ching is also
introduced. The eight fundamental signs (Pa Kua) of
the / Ching are brought into various passages of our
text as symbols for certain inner processes, and further
on we will try to explain the influence exerted by the
application of the symbols. For the rest, since Con-
fucianism has a broad common base with Taoism, the
union of these two sets of ideas does not cause a loss
in coherence.

Perhaps it will strike many a European reader as
remarkable that there appear in the text sayings familiar
to him from Christian teaching, while, on the other hand,
these same well-known things which in Europe are very
often taken only as ecclesiastical metaphors, are here
given quite a different perspective because of the psycho-
logical connections in which they are placed. We find
intuitions and concepts like the following, to select only
a few that are especially striking : Light is the life of

man. The eye is the light of the body. Man is spiritually
reborn out of water and fire, to which must be added
" thought-earth " (spirit), as womb, or tilled field. Let
us compare the sayings of John : I baptize you with
water : after me shall come one who will baptize with
the Holy Ghost and with fire ; or : Except a man be
born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God. How plastic becomes the thought of
" water " as the seed-substance in our text, and how clear
the difference between the outward streaming activity
which exhausts itself in creation (what is born of flesh
remains flesh), and the " backward flowing " movement
(metanoia) I

The bath, too, plays its part in this rebirth just as it
does in the baptism preached by John and in the Christian
baptism as well. Even the mystical marriage, which plays
such an important role in Christian parables, appears several
times ; there is also mentioned the child, the boy within
ourselves, as well as the bride. (The boy is the puer
aetemus, the Christ who must be born in us and who,
taken another way, is the bridegroom of the soul.) And
what is most striking of all, perhaps, even an apparently
minor detail, the need of having oil in the lamps so that
they can burn brightly, takes on a new and weighty-
psychological meaning, thanks to our text. It is worth
mentioning that the expression Golden Flower (Chin
Htui), in an esoteric connection, includes the word "light "
If one writes the two characters one above the other, so
that they touch, the lower part of the upper character and
the upper part of the lower character, make the character
for " light " (kuang). Apparently this secret sign was
invented in a time of persecution, when a veil of deep
secrecy was necessary to the further promulgation of the
doctrine. That was also the reason the teaching always

remained limited to secret circles. Even to-day its
membership is greater than appears from the outside.

If we ask whither this light-religion points, we can
first of all consider Persia, for even in the T'ang period
there were Persian temples in many places in China.
But if certain points correspond with the religion of
Zarathustra, and especially with Persian mysticism, there
are, on the other hand, very strong divergences. Another
view to be considered is that of a direct Christian influence.
In the T*ang period, the religion of the Uigurs, who were
connected with the Emperor, was the Nestorian branch
of Christianity and stood in high favour, as is witnessed
by the well-known Xestorian monument in Sianfu. It
was erected in 781, and has both a Chinese and a Syrian
inscription. Thus connections between the Nestorians
and the Chin Tan Chiao are quite possible. Th. Richard
went so far as to consider the Chin Tan Chiao simply a
survival of the old Nestorians. He was led to this view
by certain agreements in ritual and certain traditions
of the Chin Tan Chiao membership which approach
closely to the Christian practice. Lately P. Y. Saeki x
has taken up the theory again, and, supported by the
Nestorian liturgy found in Tun-huang by Pelliot, has
established a series of further parallels. He even goes
so far as to identifv Lu Yen, the founder of the Chin
Tan Chiao, with Adam, the Chronicler of the text of the *
Nestorian monument, who signs himself with the Chinese
name Lu Hsiu-yen. According to this hypothesis, Lu
Yen, the founder of the Chin Tan Chiao, would have been
a Christian of the Nestorian confession ! Saeki goes
decidedly too far in his delight in identifications : his
proofs are all of them almost convincing, but there is
always lacking the crucial point which would clinch

1 The Nestorian Monument in China. London, 2nd edition, 1928.

the matter. Many partial proofs do not make a whole
one, but we must agree with him at least to the extent
of admitting that in the Chin Tan Chiao there has been
a strong admixture of Nestorian ideas which are also
evident in the present manuscript. These ideas seem,
on the one hand, very odd in their strange dress, while
on the other hand thev take on a remarkable "new " sort
of life. Here we reach one of those points which prove
over and over again :

" East and West are no longer to remain apart."

2. The Psychological and Cosmological Premises of

the Text

In the interpretation of the following translation,
it is of value to say a few more w T ords about the founda-
tions of the Weltanschauung on which the method depends.
This philosophy is, to a certain extent, the common
property of all Chinese trends of thought. It is built
on the premise that cosmos and man in the last analysis
obey common laws ; that man is a cosmos in miniature
and is not divided from the great cosmos by any fixed
limits. The same laws rule for the one as for the other,
and from the one a way leads into the other. The psyche
and the cosmos are related to each other like the inner
and outer worlds. Therefore man participates by nature
in all cosmic events, and is inwardly as well as outwardly
interwoven with them.

Tao, then, the meaning of the world, the way,
dominates man just as it does invisible and visible nature
(Heaven and Earth). The character for Tao in its original

form, 1 consists of a head, which must be interpreted as
tk beginning "' ; and, under that, the character for
" standing still ", which, in the later way of writing, has
been omitted. The original meaning, then, is that of a
"* track which, though fixed itself, leads from the beginning
directly to the goal ". The fundamenal idea is the
idea that Tao, though itself motionless, is the means of
all movement and gives it law. Heavenly paths are
those along which the stars move ; the path of man is
the way along which he must travel. Lao Tzu has used
this word in the metaphysical sense, as the final world
principle, the " Meaning " existing before there is any
realization and not yet divided by the pulling asunder of
polar opposites on which all realization depends. This
terminology is presupposed in the present book.

In Confucianism there is a certain difference in the
terminology. The word Tao has here an inner-world
significance and means the " right way " ; on the one
hand, the way of Heaven, on the other, the way of man.
To Confucianism, the final principle of an undivided
One is the T*ai Chi (the great ridge-beam, the great pole).
The term " pole " occasionally comes in our text also,
and is there identical with Tao.

Out of Tao, that is to say, out of the T'ai Chi, there
develop the principles of reality ; the one pole being light
iyang) and the other darkness (yin). Among European
investigators, some have turned first to sexual references
for an explanation, but the characters refer to phenomena
in nature. Yin is shadow, therefore the north side of a
mountain and the south side of a river (because during
the day the position of the sun makes the river appear
dark from the south). Yang, in its original form shows

1 Compare -Ku Chou Pien, vol. 66, p. 25 ff., which was also consulted as to the
analysis" of the other characters.

flying pennants, and, corresponding to the character yin,
is the south side of a mountain and the north side of a
river. Starting with the meaning of " light " and " dark ",
the principle was then expanded to all polar opposites,
including the sexual. However, both yin and yang are only
active in the realm of phenomena, and have their common
origin in an undivided unity, yang as the active principle
appearing to condition, and yin as the passive principle
seeming to be derived or conditioned. It is therefore
quite clear that a metaphysical dualism is not at the
bottom of these ideas. Less abstract than yin and yang
are the concepts of the creative and the receptive (ChHen
and K'un) that originate in the Book of Changes [I Ching],
and are symbolized by Heaven and Earth. Through the
union of Heaven and Earth, and through the activity of
the two primordial forces within this scene (an activity
governed by the one primal law Tao), there develop the
" ten thousand things ", that is, the outer world.

Viewed objectively as a physical organism, which
in all its parts is also a small universe (Hsiao T'ien Ti) t
man is one of the " ten thousand things ". So, according
to the Confucians, the inner nature of man comes from
Heaven, or, as the Taoists express it, it is a phenomenal
form of Tao. In his phenomenal form man develops
into a multiplicity of individuals in each of whom the
central monad is enclosed as the life-principle ; but
immediately, before birth even, at the moment of con-
ception, it separates into the bi-polar phenomena of
essence and life (hsing and ming). The character for
essence (hsing) is made up of those for heart (hsiri), and
origin, being born (sheng). The heart (hsiri), according
to the Chinese idea, is the seat of emotional consciousness,
which is awakened through feeling reactions to impressions
received from the external world by the five senses.

That wrdvh remains as a substratum when no feelings are
bt-m«4 expressed, but which lingers, so to speak, in a
transcendental, superconscious. condition, is essence
;ksir:2). Varying according to the more exact definition
of this concept, essence is either originally good, if looked
at from the standpoint of the eternal idea, 1 or it is
originally evil, or at least neutral (if taken from the stand-
point of empirical evolution), 2 and has to be made into
something good by a long development of custom.

Essence (hsing), undoubtedly related to logos, appears
closely knit with life (ming) when entering phenomena.
The character ming really signifies a royal command then,
destiny, fate, the fate allotted to a man, so too, the
duration of life, the measure of vitality at one's disposal, and
thus it comes about that ming (life) is closely related to eros.
Both principles are, so to speak, super-individual. Man
as a spiritual being is made human by essence (hsing).
The individual man possesses it. but it extends far beyond
the limits of the individual. Life (ming) is also super-
individual in that man must simply accept a destiny which
does not come from his conscious will. Confucianism
sees in it a Heaven-made law to which man must adapt ;
Taoism takes it as the multi-coloured play of nature
which cannot evade the laws of Tao i but w T hieh, as such,
is pure chance ; Chinese Buddhism sees it as the w r orking
out of karma within the world of illusion.

To these dualities there correspond in the corporeal-
personal man the following bi-polar tensions. The body
is activated by the interplay of two psychic structures :
first, hun, which I have translated as animus* the

1 See Meneius.

* See Hsun K'uang.

3 Wilhelm's use of the term animus lends the latter a meaning quite different
from that given it by Jung's concept, where the animus is an element in a woman's
mind. Jung finds Aim close to the meaning of logos, but the latter term could not
be used for hun, first, because of there being another Chinese concept still closer

masculine soul, because it belongs to the yang principle,
and secondly, p'o, which belongs to the yin principle, and
is rendered by me as anima. 1 Both are ideas coming from
an observation of the events connected with death, and
therefore both contain in their written form the sign
for daemon, that is, the departed one (kuei). The anima
was thought of as especially linked with the bodily
processes ; at death it sinks to the earth and decays.
The animus, on the other hand, is the higher soul ; after
death it rises in the air, where at first it is active for a
time and then evaporates in ethereal space, or flows
back into the reservoir of life. In living men, the two
correspond in a certain degree to the cerebral and
sympathetic nervous system. The animus dwells in the
eyes, the anima in the abdomen. The animus is bright
and active, the anima is dark and earth-bound. The
sign for hun (animus) is made up of the character for
"daemon" and "cloud", while that for p'o (anima) is
composed of the characters for " daemon " and " white ".
This would indicate ideas similar to what we find appearing
elsewhere as shadow-soul and body-soul, and without a
doubt the Chinese concept is meant to include something
like this. None the less, we must be cautious in the matter
of derivations, because the most ancient script known
in China had no sign for daemon, and so we may perhaps
be dealing with primordial symbols whose derivations

to logos, i.e. hsing (essence), and also because hun is described as being a personal
factor, while logos is strictly impersonal. The expression " spirit soul " as opposed
to " earthly soul " would seem to cover the meaning of hun as explained by Wilhehn,
and in order to avoid a possible confusion in terminology it was planned to make
this alteration in the English version, the authors having agreed that a change was
advisable. But though the proposed substitution would undoubtedly simplify things
for the reader and would involve no change in meaning, still it would require the
rearrangement of several paragraphs and thus cause too great a divergence between
the two editions. For that reason, the change has not been carried out. — (C. F. B.)
1 It is to be noted that p'o corresponds to only one part of the anima as con-
ceived by Jung. In the latter's concept, the spiritual side of the anima is quite
as important as the animal side. — (C. F. B.)

are lost. In any case, animus (hun) is the light, yang-
soul, while anima (p'o) is the dark, yin-soul.

The usual, unchecked, 1 that is, downward movement
of the life-processes, is the one in which the two souls
are related as the intellectual and animal factors. As a
rule, it will be the anima, the blind will, which, goaded by
passions, forces the animus or intellect into its service.
At least the anima will do this to the extent that the
intellect directs itself outward, whereby the powers both
of animus and anima leak away and life consumes itself.
A positive result is the creation of new beings in which
life continues, while the original being " externalizes
itself r ' and " ultimately is made by things into a thing ".
The end result is death. The anima sinks, the animus
rises, and the ego, robbed of its strength, is left behind in
a dubious condition.

If the ego has acquiesced in the " externalization ",
it follows the downward pull, and sinks into the dull
misery* of death, only poorly nourished by the illusory
images of life which it still attracts to itself without
being able to participate in anything actively (hells,
hungry souls). But, if the ego has made an effort to
strive upward in spite of the process of " externalization ",
it maintains for a time (as long, in fact, as it is reinforced
by the powers of sacrifice of its survivors) a relatively

1 The German word used is rechtlaufig, -which means normal flow. In
the text it describes forces in the body which flow from up to down, and
so in all other instances except the above I have translated it as downward-
flowing. When the forces in the body are not allowed to go their natural, down-
ward course, but are dammed up, the movement is described in the text as back-
ward-flowing (ruckldvfig). The yoga system teaches a technique of meditation
whereby the natural flow can be thus reversed and the force made to rise to the
higher centres, where it is converted into spirit. Leaving out this end. result, it is
easy for the student of analytical psychology to see a connection between the two
streams of force and the concept of extraversion and introversion. An important
difference is the fact that extraverskm and introversion apply to psychical energy
alone, whereas the Chinese concept seems to include both psychical and physiological
processes. — (C. F. B.)

happy life, each according to its deserts. In both cases,
if the ego follows the anima, the personal element retreats
and there ensues an involution corresponding to the
amount of " externalization ". The being then becomes
an impotent phantom because the forces of life fail and its
fate is ended. It now partakes of the fruits of its good
or bad deeds in heavens or hells, which, however, are
not external things, but purely subjective states. The
more the being is sunk in these states, the more entangled
in them it becomes, till finally it disappears from the plane
of existence, of whatever nature that may have been, and
then by entering a new womb begins a new existence
formed out of its supply of images and memories. This
condition is the state of the daemon, the spirit, the
departed one, the one who withdraws. The Chinese
word for this ghost-being is kuei, often wrongly translated
by "devil".

If, on the other hand, it has been possible during life
to set going the " backward-flowing ", rising movement of
the life-forces, if the forces of the anima are mastered by
the animus, then a release from external things takes
place. They are recognized but not desired. Thus the
illusion is robbed of its strength. An inner, ascending
circulation of forces takes place. The ego withdraws
from its entanglement in the world, and after death
remains alive because " interiorization " has prevented
the wasting of the life-forces in the outer world. Instead
of these being dissipated, they have made within the inner
rotation of monad a centre of life which is independent
of bodily existence. Such an ego is a god, deus, shSn.
The character for shin means to expand, to produce an
effect, in a word, the opposite of Li. In the oldest
Chinese script, it is represented by a double serpentine
coil, which can also mean thunder, lightning, electrical

activity, S::eh a being survives as long as the inner
rotation continues. Also, it can invisibly influence men
to ureat thoughts and noble deeds. The saints and sages
of ancient times are beings like these, who for thousands
»>f years have stimulated and educated humanity.

But there remains a limitation. These beings retain
a persona! character, and are therefore subject to the
effects of space and time. Neither are they immortal
any more than Heaven and Earth are eternal. Eternal
is the Golden Flower only, which grows out of inner
liberation from ail bondage to things. A man who reaches
this stage transposes his ego ; he is no longer limited to
the monad, but penetrates the magic circle of the polar
duality of ail phenomena and returns to the undivided
One, Tao. Herein lies a difference between Buddhism
and Taoism. In Buddhism, this return to Nirvana is
connected with a complete annihilation of the ego, which,
like the world, is only illusion. If Nirvana may not be
explained as death, cessation, still it is something trans-
cendent. In Taoism, on the other hand, the goal is to
preserve in a transfigured form, the idea of the person,
the " traces " left by experience. That is the Light,
which with life returns to itself, symbolized in our text
by the Golden Flower.

As a supplement, we must still add a few words about
the use of the eight signs of the Book of Changes (I Ching)
in our text. The sign Chen EEJE, thunder, the arouser,
is life which breaks out of the depths of the Earth ; it is

the beginning of all movement. The sign Sun ,

wind, wood, gentleness, characterizes the streaming of the
reality-forces into the form of the idea. Just as wind
pervades all places, so the principle for which Sun stands
is all-penetrating, and breathes " realization ". The sign
Li EHE, sun, fire, the lucid (the principle of that which

adheres to), plays a great role in this light religion. It
dwells in the eyes, forms the protecting circle, and effects
the rebirth. The sign K'un = =, earth, the receptive, is
one of the two primordial principles, namely the yin
principle which is made real in the forces of the Earth.
It is the Earth which, as a tilled field, takes up the seed
of Heaven and gives it form. The sign Tut " ~~ ,
lake, mist, serenity, is an end condition on the yin side,
and therefore belongs to autumn. The sign ChHen _ -_"-,
Heaven, the creative, the strong, is the reality form of the
yang principle which fertilizes K l un, the receptive. The
sign K'an ZEE-n water, the abysmal, is the opposite of
Li jELJEf, as is shown in its structure. It represents
the region of eros, while Li stands for logos. Li is the
sun, K'an the moon. The marriage of K'an and Li is
the secret magical process which produces the child, the
new man. The sign Ken EF"z=, mountain, quietness,
represents meditation, which, by keeping external things
quiescent, quickens the inner world. Therefore Ken is the
place w r here death and life meet, where " Stirb und Werde " l
is consummated.

i «

Die and come to life 1 "

OF THE

T'AI I CHIX HUA TSUNG CHffl

1. Heavenly Consciousness (The Heart)

Master Lii Tzu said : That which exists through itself
is called Meaning (Tao). Meaning has neither name nor
force. It is the one essence, the one primordial spirit.
Essence and life cannot be seen. It is contained in the
Light of Heaven. The Light of Heaven cannot be seen.
It is contained in the two eyes. To-day I will be your
guide and will first reveal to you the secret of the Golden
Flower of the Great One, and, starting from that, I will
explain the rest in detail.

The Great One is the term given to that which has
nothing above it. The secret of the magic of life consists
in using action in order to achieve non-action. One must
not wish to leave out the steps between and penetrate
directlv. The maxim handed down to us is to take in
hand the work on the essence. In doing this it is important,
not to follow the wrong road.

The Golden Flower is the Light. What colour has
the Light ? One uses the Golden Flower as an image.
It is the true power of the transcendent Great One. The
phrase, " The lead of the water-region has but one taste,"
refers to it.

In the Book of Changes it is said r : Heaven created water
through the One. That is the true power of the Great One.
If a man attains this One he becomes alive ; if he misses it he dies.
But even if a man lives in the power (air, prana) he does not see
the power (air), just as fishes live in water but do not see the water.
A man dies when he has no life-air, just as the fishes are destroyed
when deprived of water. Therefore the adepts have taught the
people to hold fast to the primal and to guard the One ; it is the

1 The references on this and the following pages are to remarks on page 71.

circular course of the Light and the protection of the centre. If
one guards this true power, one can prolong the span of life, and
can then apply the methods of creating an immortal body by
" melting and mixing ".

The work on the circulation of the Light depends
entirely on the backward-flowing movement, so that the
thoughts are gathered together (the place of Heavenly
Consciousness, the Heavenly Heart). The Heavenly
Heart lies between sun and moon (i.e. the two eyes).

The Booh of the Yellow Castle says : In the field
of the square inch of the house of the square foot, life
can be regulated. The house of the square foot is the
face. The field of the square inch in the face : what
could that be other than the Heavenly Heart ? In the
middle of the square inch dwells the splendour. In the
purple hall of the city of jade dwells the god of utmost
emptiness and life. The Confucians call it the centre
of emptiness ; the Buddhists, the terrace of life ; the
Taoists, the ancestral land, or the yellow castle, or the
dark pass, or the space of former Heaven. The Heavenly
Heart is like the dwelling place, the Light is the master.

Therefore when the Light circulates, the powers of
the whole body arrange themselves before its throne, just
as when a holy king has taken possession of the capital
and has laid down the fundamental rules of order, all
the states approach with tribute; or, just as when the
master is quiet and calm, men-servants and maids obey
his orders of their own accord, and each does his work.

Therefore you only have to make the Light circulate :
that is the deepest and most wonderful secret. The Light
is easy to move, but difficult to fix* If it is allowed to
go long enough in a circle, then it crystallizes itself : that
is the natural spirit-body. This crystallized spirit is
formed beyond the nine Heavens. It is the condition of

which it is said in the Book of the Seal of the Heart :
Silently in the morning thou fiiest upward.

In carrying out this fundamental truth you need to
seek for no other methods, but must only concentrate your
thoughts on it. The book Ling Yen (2) says : By
collecting the thoughts one can fly and will be born in
Heaven. Heaven is not the wide blue sky, but the
place where the body is made in the house of the creative.
If one keeps this up for a long time, there develops quite
naturally in addition to the body, yet another spirit-body.

The Golden Flower is the Elixir of Life (Chin Tan,
literally, golden ball, golden pill). All changes of spiritual
consciousness depend upon the Heart. Here is a secret
charm, which, although it works very accurately, is yet
so fluent that it needs extreme intelligence and clarity,
and complete absorption and calm. People without
this highest degree of intelligence and understanding do
not find the way to apply the charm ; people without this
utmost capacity for concentration and calm cannot keep
fast hold of it.

This section explains the origin of the Great Meaning of the world
(Too). The Heavenly Heart is the germinal root of the Great
Meaning. If a man can be absolutely quiet then the Heavenly
Heart will manifest itself. When the feeling springs up and flows
-out in the natural course, the person is created as primordial
creature. This creature abides between conception and birth in*
true space. When the One note of individuation enters into
birth, essence and life are divided in two. From this time on, if the
utmost peace is not achieved, essence and life never see each
other again.

Therefore it is said in the plan of the Great Pole : The Great
One includes within itself true power (prana), seed, spirit, animus,
and anima. If the thoughts are absolutely quiet so that the
Heavenly Heart can be seen, the spiritual intelligence reaches the
source unaided. This essence lives indeed in true space, but the

splendour of the Light dwells in the two eyes. Therefore the Master
teaches the circulation of the Light so that the true essence
may be reached. The true essence is the primordial spirit. The
primordial spirit is precisely essence and life, and if one accepts
what is real in it, it is the primordial power. And the Great
Meaning is just this thing.

The Master is further concerned that the people should not
miss the way that leads from conscious action to unconscious
non-action. Therefore he says : The magic of the Elixir of Life
makes use of conscious action in order that non-action may be
attained. Conscious action consists in setting the Light in circula-
tion by reflection in order to make manifest the setting free of
Heaven. If then the true seed is born, and the right method
applied in order to melt and mix it, and in that way to create
the Elixir of Life, then one goes through the pass. The embryo,
which must be developed by the work of warming, nourishing,
bathing, and washing, is formed. That crosses over into the realm
of unconscious non-action. A whole year of this fire-period is
needed before the embryo is born, sheds the membranes, and
passes out of the ordinary world into the holy world.

This method is quite simple and easy. But there are so many
transforming and changing conditions connected with it that it is
said : Not with one leap can a man suddenly get there. Who-
ever is seeking eternal life must search for the place whence essence
and life originally spring.

2. The Primordial Spirit and the Conscious Spirit

Master Lu Tzii said : In comparison with Heaven
and Earth, man is like a mayfly. But compared to the
Great Meaning, Heaven and Earth, too, are like a bubble
and a shadow. Only the primordial spirit and the true
essence overcome time and space.

The power of the seed, like Heaven and Earth, is
subject to mortality, but the primordial spirit is beyond

the polar differences. Here is the place whence Heaven
and Earth derive their being. When students under-
stand how to grasp the primordial spirit they overcome
the polar opposites of Light and Darkness and tarry
no longer in the three worlds (3). But only he who has
looked on essence in its original manifestation is able
to do thisl

When men are set free from the womb the primordial
spirit dwells in the square inch (between the eyes), but
the conscious spirit dwells below in the heart. This lower
fleshly heart has the shape of a large peach : it is covered
by the wings of the lungs, supported by the liver, and
served by the bowels. This heart is dependent on the
outside world. If a man does not eat for one day even,
it feels extremely uncomfortable. If it hears something
terrifying it throbs ; if it hears something enraging it
stops ; if it is faced with death it becomes sad ; if it sees
something beautiful it is dazzled. But the Heavenly
Heart in the head, when would it have been in the least
moved ? Dost thou ask : Can the Heavenly Heart not be
moved ? Then I answer : How could the true thought
in the square inch be moved ? If it really moves, it is
not well. For when ordinary men die, then it moves,
but that is not good. It is best indeed if the Light has .
already fortified itself in a spirit-body and its life-force
gradually penetrated the instincts and movements. But
that is a secret which has not been revealed for thousands
of years.

The lower heart moves like a strong, powerful com-
mander who despises the Heavenly ruler because of his
weakness, and has seized for himself the leadership of the
affairs of state. But when the primordial castle can be
fortified and defended, then it is as if a strong and wise
ruler sat upon the throne. The two eyes start the Light

circulating like two ministers at the right and the left
who support the ruler with all their might. When the
ruler in the centre is thus in order, all those rebellious
heroes will present themselves with lances reversed ready
to take orders.

The way to the Elixir of Life recognizes as supreme
magic, seed-water, spirit-fire, and thought-earth : these
three. What is seed- water ? It is the true, one power
(eros) of former Heaven. Spirit-fire is the Light (logos).
Thought-earth is the Heavenly Heart of the middle house
(intuition). Spirit-fire is used for effecting, thought-earth
for substance, and seed- water for the foundation. Ordinary
men make their bodies through thoughts. The body is
not only the 7 ft. tall outer body. In the body is
the anima. The anima, having produced consciousness,
adheres to it. Consciousness depends for its origin on the
anima. The anima is feminine (yin), the substance of
consciousness. As long as this consciousness is not
interrupted, it continues to beget from generation to
generation, and the changes of form of the anima and the
transformations of substance are unceasing.

But, besides this, there is the animus in which the
spirit shelters. The animus lives in the daytime in the
eyes ; at night it houses in the liver. When living in the
eyes, it sees ; when housing itself in the liver, it dreams.
Dreams are the wanderings of the spirit through all nine
Heavens and all the nine Earths. But whoever is dull
and moody on waking, and chained to his bodily form, is
fettered by the anima. Therefore the concentration of
the animus is effected by the circulation of the Light,
and in this way the spirit is protected, the anima subjected,
and consciousness annulled. The method used by the
ancients for escaping from the world consisted in burning
out completely the slag of darkness in order to return to

the purely creative. This is nothing more than a reduction
of the anima and a bringing to perfection of the animus.
And the circulation of the Light is the magical means of
limiting the dark powers and gaining mastery of the
anima. Even if the work is not directed toward bringing
back the creative, but confines itself to the magical
means of the circulation of the Light, it is just the Light
that is creative. By means of its circulation, one returns
to the creative. If this method is followed, plenty of
seed- water will be present of itself ; the spirit-fire will be
ignited, and the thought-earth will solidify and crystallize.
And thus can the holy fruit mature. The scarabseus rolls
his ball and in the ball there develops life as the effect of
the undivided effort of his spiritual concentration. If
now an embryo can grow in manure, and shed its skin,
why should not the dwelling place of our Heavenly Heart
also be able to create a body if we concentrate the spirit
upon it ?

The one effective, true essence (logos united with life),
when it descends into the house of the creative, divides
into animus and anima. The animus is in the Heavenly
Heart. It is of the nature of light; it is the power of
lightness and purity. It is that which we have received
from the great emptiness, that which has form from the
very beginning. The anima partakes of the nature of
darkness. It is the power of the heavy and the turbid ;
it is bound to the bodily, fleshly heart. The animus loves
life. The anima seeks death. All sensuous pleasures and
impulses to anger are effects of the anima; it is the
conscious spirit which after death is nourished on blood,
but which, during life, is in direst need. Darkness returns
to darkness and like things attract each other. But the
pupil understands how to distil the dark anima so that it
transforms itself into Light (yang) (4).

In this part there is described the role played by the primordial
spirit and the conscious spirit in the making of the human body.
The Master says : The life of man is like that of a mayfly : only
the true essence of the primordial spirit can escape the cycle of
Heaven and Earth and the fate of the aeons. The true essence
proceeds from that which has no polarity and receives the prim-
ordial force of polarity whereby it takes the true essence of
Heaven and Earth into itself and becomes the conscious spirit.
As primordial spirit it receives the essence from father and mother.
This primordial spirit is without consciousness and knowledge,
but is able to regulate the formative processes of the body. The
conscious spirit is very apparent and very effective, and can adapt
itself unceasingly. It is the ruler of the human heart. As long as
it stays in the body it is the animus. After its departure from the
body it becomes spirit. While the body is entering into existence,
the primordial spirit has not yet made an embryo in which it
could incorporate itself. Thus it crystallizes itself in free oneness
without poles.

At the time of birth the conscious spirit draws in the power of
the air and thus becomes the dwelling of the new-born. It lives
in the heart. From that time on the heart is master, and the
primordial spirit loses its place while the conscious spirit has
power.

The primordial spirit loves peace, and the conscious spirit
loves movement. In its movement it remains bound to the feelings
and desires. Day and night it wastes the primal seed till the
force of the primordial spirit is entirely used up. Then the con-
scious spirit leaves the shell and goes away.

Whoever has done good in the main, has a power of spirit that
is pure and clear when death comes. It passes out by the upper"
openings of mouth and nose. The pure and light air-power rises
upward and floats up to Heaven and becomes the five-fold,
present shadow-genius, or shadow-spirit. But if, during life,
the primordial spirit was used by the conscious spirit for avarice,
folly, desire, and lust, and has committed all sorts of sins, then in
the moment of death, the power of the spirit is troubled and
confused, and the conscious spirit passes, together with the air,
through the lower openings to the door of the belly. For if the
power of the spirit is turbid and unclean, it crystallizes downward,*
sinks down to Hell and becomes a demon. Then not only the

)

primordial spirit loses its nature, but the power and wisdom
of the true essence is thereby lessened. Therefore the Master
says : If it moves itself, that is not good. If one wants to protect
the primordial spirit, one must first not failto subjugate the know-
ing spirit. The way to subjugate it leads through the circulation
of the Light. If one puts the circulation of the Light into practice,
one must forget both body and heart. The heart must die, the
spirit live. When the spirit lives, the breath will begin to circu-
late in a wonderful way. This is what the Master called the best (5).
Then the spirit must be allowed to dive down into the abdomen
(solar-plexus). The power then mixes with the spirit, and the
spirit unites with the power and becomes crystallized. This is
the method of putting the hand to it.

In time, the primordial spirit transforms itself in the dwelling
of life into the true power. At that time, the method of the turning
of the millwheel must be applied, in order to distil it so that it
becomes the Elixir of Life. That is the method of concentrated
work.

When the Life-Elixir pearl is finished, the holy embryo can be
formed ; then the work must be directed to the warming and
nourishing of the spiritual embryo. That is the method of the
finishing.

When the power-body of the child is fully formed, the work
must be so directed that the embryo is born and returns again to
emptiness. That is the method of the releasing of the hand.

From the most ancient times till to-day, this is not empty talk,
but the sequence of the Great Meaning in the real method of pro-
ducing an eternally living and immortal spirit and holy man.

But if the work is so far successful, then all belonging to the
dark principle is entirely destroyed, and the body born into pure
light. When the conscious spirit has been transformed into the
primordial spirit, then only can one say that it has attained an
unending capacity for transformation, and departing from the
cycle of births, has been brought to the six-fold (6) present,
golden spirit. If this method of ennobling is not applied, how will
the way of being born and dying be .escaped ?

S. Circulation of the Light and Protection of the

Centre

Master Lii Tzii said : Since when has the expression
" circulation of the Light " been revealed ? It was
revealed by the " True Men of the Beginning of Form "
(Kuan Yin Hsi) (7). When the Light is allowed to move
in a circle, all the powers of Heaven and Earth, of the
Light and the Dark, are crystallized. That is what is
described as seedlike, or purification of the power, or
purification of the concept. When one begins to apply
this magic, it is as if , in the middle of one's being, there
were a non-being. When in the course of time the work
is finished, and beyond the body there is another body,
it is as if , in the middle of the non-being, there were a
being. Only after a completed work of a hundred days will
the Light be real, then only will it become spirit-fire.
After a hundred days, there develops by itself in the
middle of the Light, a point of the true Light-pole (yang).
Suddenly there develops the seed pearl. It is as if man
and woman embraced and a conception took place.
Then one must be quite still in order to await it. The
circulation of the Light is the epoch of fire.

In the midst of primal becoming, the radiance of the
Light (Yang Kuang) is the determining thing. In the
physical world it is the sun; in man the eye. The
emanation and dissemination of spiritual consciousness
is chiefly brought about by this power when it is directed
outward (flows downward). Therefore the meaning of the
Golden Flower depends wholly on the backward-flowing
method.

Man's heart stands under the fire sign (8). The flames of the
fire press upward. When both eyes are looking at things of the
world it is with vision directed outward. Now if one closes the
eyes and, reversing the glance, directs it inward and looks at the
room of the ancestors, that is the backward-flowing method. The
power of the kidneys is under the water sign. When the instincts
are stirred, it runs downward, is directed outward, and creates
children. If, in the moment of release, it is not allowed to flow
outward but is led back by the force of thought so that it pene-
trates the crucible of the creative and refreshes heart and body
and nourishes them, that also is the backward-flowing method.
Therefore it is said : The meaning of the Elixir of Life depends
entirely on the backward-flowing method.

Circulation of the Light is not only a circulation of the
seed-blossom of the one body, but it is, in the first place, a
circulation of the ' true, creative, formative powers. It
has to do, not with a momentary fantasy, but with the
exhaustion of the circular course (soul-wanderings) of
all the aeons. Therefore a breath-pause means a year —
according to human reckoning — and a hundred years
measured by the long night of the Nine Paths (of re-
incarnation).

After a man has the one tone of individuation (9)
behind him, he will be born outward according to the
circumstances, and not until he is old will he turn a single
time to the backward-flowing way. .The force of the
Light exhausts itself and trickles away. That brings the
nine-fold darkness (of rebirths) into the world. In the
book Leng Yen (10) it is said : By concentrating the
thoughts, one can fly; by concentrating the desires, one
falls. When a pupil takes little care of his thoughts and
much care of his desires, he gets into the path of depravity.
Only through contemplation and quietness does true
intuition arise : for that, the backward-flowing method
is necessary.

In the book of the Secret Correspondences (11), it is
said : Release is in the eye. In the Simple Questions
of the Yellow Ruler (12) it is said : The seed-blossom
of the human body must be concentrated upward in
the empty space. That refers to it. Immortality is
contained in this sentence and also the overcoming of
the world is contained in it. That is the common goal
of all religions.

The Light is not in the body alone, neither is it only
outside the body. Mountains and rivers and the great
Earth are lit by sun and moon; all that is this Light.
Therefore it is not only within the body. Understanding
and clarity, knowing and enlightenment, and all motion
(of the spirit), are likewise this Light ; therefore it is not
just something outside the body. The Light-flower of
Heaven and Earth fills all thousand spaces. But also the
Light-flower of one body passes through Heaven and covers
the Earth. Therefore, just as the Light is circulating,
so Heaven and Earth, mountains and rivers, are all
rotating with it at the same time. To concentrate the
seed-flower of the human body above in the eyes, that is
the great key of the human body. Children, take heed !
If for a day you do not practise meditation, this Light
streams out, who knows whither ? If you only meditate
for a quarter of an hour, you can set ten thousand aeons
and a thousand births at rest. All methods take thei/
source in quietness. This marvellous magic cannot be
fathomed.

But when the work is started, one must press on from
the obvious to the profound, from the coarse to the fine.
Everything depends on there being no interruption. The
beginning and the end of the work must be one. In
between there are cooler and warmer moments, that goes
without saying. But the goal must be to reach the breadth

of Heaven and the depths of the sea, so that all methods
seem quite easy and taken for granted. Only then do we
have it in hand.

All holy men have bequeathed this to one another :
nothing is possible without contemplation (fan chao,
reflection). When Confucius says : Knowing brings one
to the goal ; or when Buddha calls it : The view of the
Heart ; or Lao Tzii says : Inward vision, it is all the
same.

Anyone can talk about reflection, but he cannot master
it if he does not know what the word means. What has
to be changed by reflection is the self-conscious heart,
which has to direct itself toward that point where the
formative spirit is not yet manifest. Within our 6 ft.
body, we must strive for the form which existed before
the laying down of Heaven and Earth. If to-day people
sit and meditate only one or two hours, looking only at their
own egos, and call it contemplation, how can any-
thing come of it ?

The two founders of Buddhism and Taoism have
taught that one should look at the end of one's nose.
But they did not mean that one should fasten one's
thoughts to the end of the nose. Neither did they mean
that, while the eyes were looking at the end of the nose,
the thoughts should be concentrated on the yellow middle.
f Wherever the eye looks, the heart is directed also. How
can the glance be directed at the same time upward
(yellow middle), and downward (end of the nose), or
alternating, so that it is now up, now down ? All that
means confusing the finger with which one points to the
moon with the moon itself.

What is really meant by this? The expression,
" end of the nose," is very cleverly chosen. The nose
must serve the eyes as a guiding line. If one is not

guided by the nose, either one opens wide the eyes and
looks into the distance, so that the nose is not seen,
or the lids shut too much, so that the eyes close, and
again the nose is not seen. But when the eyes are opened
too wide, one makes the mistake of directing them out-
ward, whereby one is easily distracted. If they are closed
too much, then one makes the mistake of letting them
turn inward, whereby one easily sinks into a dreamy
reverie. Only when the eyelids are sunk properly half-
way, is the end of the nose seen in just the right way.
Therefore it is taken as a guiding line. The main thing is
to lower the eye-lids in the right way, and then to allow
the Light to stream in of itself, without trying to force
the Light to stream in by a concentrated effort. Looking
at the nose serves only as the beginning of the inner
concentration, so that the eyes are brought into the right
direction for looking, and then are held to the guiding
line : after that, one can let it be. That is the way a mason
hangs up a plumb-line. As soon as he has hung it up,
he guides his work by it without continually bothering
himself to look at the plumb-line.

Fixating contemplation (13) is a Buddhist method
which by no means has been handed down as a secret.

One looks with both eyes at the- end of the nose,
sits upright and in a comfortable position, and holds the
heart to the centre in the midst of conditions (on the 6x66?"
pole in the flight of phenomena). In Taoism it is called
the yellow middle, in Buddhism the centre in the midst of
conditions. The two are the same. It does not* necessarily
mean the middle of the head. It is only a matter of fixing
one's thinking on the point which lies exactly between the
two eyes. Then all is well. The Light is something ex-
tremely mobile. When one fixes the thought on the mid-
point between the two eyes, the Light streams in of its

own accord. It is not necessary to direct the attention
especially to the central castle. In these few words the
most important thing is contained.

" The centre in the midst of conditions," is a very
fine expression. The centre is omnipresent; everything
is contained in it ; it is connected with the release of the
whole process of creation. The condition is the portal.
The condition, that is the fulfilment of this condition,
makes the beginning, but it does not bring about the rest
with inevitable necessity. The meaning of these two
words is very fluid and subtle.

Fixating contemplation is indispensable, it ensures the
strengthening of illumination. Only one must not stay sitting
rigidly if worldly thoughts come up, but one must examine
where the thought is, where it began, and where it fades
out. Nothing is gained by pushing reflection farther. One
must be content to see where the thought arose, and not
seek beyond the point of origin ; for to find the heart
(consciousness), to get behind consciousness with con-
sciousness—that cannot be done. We want to bring the
states of the heart together in rest, that is true contempla-
tion. What contradicts it is false contemplation. This
leads to no goal. When the flight of thoughts keeps extend-
ing farther, one should stop and begin contemplating. Let
one contemplate and then start concentrating again. That
is the double method of strengthening the iUumination.
It means the circular course of the light. The circular
course is fixation. The Light is contemplation. Fixation
without contemplation is circulation without Light. Con-
templation without fixation is light without circulation !
Take note of that!

The general meaning of this section is that the protection of
the centre is important for the circular course of the Light. The
last section dealt with the theme that the human body is a very

valuable possession when the primordial spirit is master. But
when it is used by the conscious spirit, the latter brings it about
that, day and night, the primordial spirit is scattered and wasted.
When it is completely worn out, the body dies. The method is
described whereby the conscious spirit can be subjected and the
primordial spirit guarded ; that is impossible if one does not begin
by making the Light circulate. It is like this : if a splendid house is
to be built, a fine foundation must first be found. When the founda-
tion is strong, then only can the work proceed and the base of the
walls be deeply and solidly grounded, and the posts and walls
built up. If a foundation is not laid in this way, how can the house
be completed ? The way of cultivating life is exactly like that.
The circulation of the Light is to be compared with the foundation
of the building. When the foundation stands firm, how quickly
it can be built upon ! To protect the yellow middle with the fire of
the spirit, that is the work of building. Therefore the Master
makes especially clear the method by which one enters in the cul-
tivation of life, and bids people look with both eyes at the end of
the nose, to lower the lids, to look within, sit quietly with upright
body, and fix the heart on the centre in the midst of the conditions.

Keeping the thoughts on the space between the two eyes
allows the Light to penetrate. Thereupon, the spirit crystallizes
and enters the centre in the midst of the conditions. The centre
in the midst of the conditions is the lower Elixir-field, the place
of power (solar plexus).

The Master hinted at this secretly when he said : At the
beginning of the work one must sit in a quiet room, the body like
dry wood, the heart like cooled ashes. Let the lids of both eyes
be lowered ; then look within and purify the heart, cleanse the^
thoughts, stop pleasures and conserve the seed. One should sit
down daily to meditate with legs crossed. Let the light in the eyes
be stopped ; let the hearing power of the ear be crystallized
and the tasting power of the tongue diminished ; that is, the
tongue should be laid to the roof of the mouth ; let the breathing
through the nose be made rhythmical and the thoughts fixed on
the dark door. If the breathing is not first made rhythmical it is
to be feared that there will be difficulty in breathing, because of
stoppage. When one closes the eyes, then one should take as a
measure a point on the back of the nose which lies not half an inch
below the intersection point of the line of sight, where there is a

little bump on the nose. Then one begins to collect one's thoughts ;
the ears make the breathing rhythmical ; body and heart are
comfortable and harmonious. The Light of the eyes must shine
quietly, and, for a long time, neither sleepiness nor distraction
must set in. The eyes do not look outward, they drop their lids
and light up what is within. There is Light in this place. The
mouth does not speak nor laugh. One closes the lips and breathes
inwardly. Breathing is at this place. The nose smells no odours.
Smelling is at this place. The ear does not hear things outside.
Hearing is at this place. The whole heart watches over what is
within. Its watching is at this place. The thoughts do not
stray outward ; true thoughts have continuity in themselves. If
the thoughts are lasting, the seed is lasting ; if the seed lasts, the
power lasts ; if the power lasts, then will the spirit last also.
The spirit is thought ; thought is the heart ; the heart is the fire ;
the fire is the Elixir. When one looks at what is within in this way,
the wonders of the opening and shutting of the gates of Heaven
will be inexhaustible* But the deeper secrets cannot be effected
without making the breathing rhythmical.

If the pupil begins and cannot hold his thoughts to the place
between the two eyes ; if he closes the eyes, but the power of the
heart does not enable him to look at the place of power, the cause
is most probably the fact that the breathing is too loud and hasty.
Other evils arise from this because body and heart are kept busy
trying to suppress forcibly the uprush of power and quick breath.

If the thoughts are only held to the two eyes, but the spirit is
not crystallized in the solar plexus (the centre in the midst of the
conditions), it is as if one had mounted to the hall but had not yet
entered the inner chamber. Then the spirit-fire will not develop, the
power remains cold, and the true fruit will hardly manifest itself.

Therefore the Master harbours the fear lest, in their efforts, men
only fix their thoughts on the place on the nose, but fail to think of
fixing their ideas on the place of power ; that is why he used the
comparison of the mason with the plumb-line. The mason only
uses the plumb-line in order to see if his wall is perpendicular or
slanting, and for this the string serves as a guiding line. When
he has determined the direction, he can begin the work. But
then he works on the wall, not on the plumb-line. That is clear.
From this it is seen that fixing the thoughts between the eyes
means only what the plumb-line does to the mason. The Master

refers again and again to this because he fears his meaning might
not be understood. And even if the pupils have grasped the way of
doing the thing, he fears they might interrupt their work, and
so he says several times : " Only after a hundred days of con-
sistent work, only then is the Light real ; only then can one begin
work with the spirit-fire," If one proceeds in a collected fashion,
after a hundred days there develops spontaneously in the Light,
a point of the real creative Light (yang). The pupils must examine
that with sincere hearts.

4. Circulation of the Light and Making the

Breathing Rhythmical

Master Lii Tzu said : The decision must be carried
out with a whole heart, and, the result not sought for;
the result will come of itself. In the first period of release
there are chiefly two mistakes : — laziness, and distraction.
But that can be remedied ; the heart must not enter into
the breathing too completely. Breathing comes from the
heart (14). What comes out of the heart is breath. When
the heart stirs, there develops breath-power. Breath -
power is originally transformed activity of the heart.
When our hearts go very fast they imperceptibly pass into
fantasies which are always accompanied by the drawing
of a breath, because this inner and outer breathing hangs
together like tone and echo. Daily we draw innumerable
breaths and have an equal number of fantasy-representa-
tions. And thus the clarity of the spirit is depleted just
as wood dries out and ashes die.

Should a man have no images in his mind ? One
cannot be without images. Should one not breathe ?
One cannot do without breathing. The best way is to
make a cure out of the illness. Since heart and breath

are mutually dependent, the circulation of the Light must
be united with the rhythm of breathing. For this, Light
of the ear is above all necessary. There is a Light of the
eye and a Light of the ear. The Light of the eye is the
united Light of the sun and moon outside. The Light of
the ear is the united seed of sun and moon within. The
seed is also the Light in crystallized form. Both have the
same origin and are different only in name. Therefore,
understanding (ear) and clarity (eye) are one and the same
effective Light.

In sitting down, after dropping the lids, one establishes
a plumb-line with the eyes and shifts the Light downward.
But if the transposition downward is not successful,
then the heart is directed toward listening to the breathing.
One should not be able to hear with the ear the out-
going and intaking of the breath. What one hears is that
it has no tone. As soon as it has tone, the breathing is
rough and superficial, and does not penetrate into what
is fine. Then the heart must be made quite light and
insignificant. The more it is released, the less important
it becomes ; the less important, the quieter. All at once
it becomes so quiet that it stops. Then the true breathing
is manifested and the form of the heart can be made
conscious. When the heart is light, the breathing is
light, for every movement of the heart brings about
breathing power. If the breathing is light, the heart is
light, for every movement of the breath affects the heart.
In order to steady the heart, one begins by cultivating
the breathing power. The heart cannot be influenced
directly. Therefore the breathing power is used as a
handle, and this is what is called protecting the collected
breathing power.

Children, do you not understand the nature of
motion ? Motion can be produced by outside means.

It is only another name for mastery. One can make
the heart move merely by running. Should one not be
able to bring it to rest then by concentrated quietness ?
The great Holy Ones who knew how the heart and breath-
ing power mutually influence one another, have thought
out an easier procedure as a way of helping posterity.

In the Book of the Elixir (15) it is said : The hen
can hatch her eggs because her heart is always listening.
That is an important magic spell. The reason the hen
can hatch the eggs is because of the power to heat. But
the power of the heat can only warm the shells ; it cannot
penetrate into the interior. Therefore with her heart she
conducts this power inward. This she does with her
hearing. In this way she concentrates her whole heart.
When the heart penetrates, the power penetrates, and the
chick receives the power of the heat and begins to live.
Therefore a hen, even when she has left her eggs, always
has the attitude of listening with bent ear. Thus the con-
centration of the spirit is not interrupted. Because the
concentration of the spirit suffers no interruption, neither
does the power of heat suffer interruption day or night,
and the spirit awakes to life. The awakening of the spirit
is accomplished because the heart has first died. When a
man can let his heart die, then the primordial spirit wakes
to life. To kill the heart does not mean to let it dry
and wither away, but it means that it is undivided and
gathered into one.

Buddha said : When you fix your heart on one point,
then nothing is impossible for you. The heart easily runs
away, so it is necessary to gather it together by means of
breathing power. Breathing power easily becomes coarse,
therefore it has to be refined by the heart. When that is
done, can it then happen that it is not fixed ?

The two mistakes of laziness and distraction must

be combated by quiet work that is carried on daily without
interruption ; then results will certainly be achieved.
If one is not seated during meditation, one will often be
distracted without noticing it. To become conscious of
the inattention is the mechanism by which to do away with
inattention. Laziness of which a man is conscious; and
laziness of which he is unconscious, are a thousand miles
apart. Unconscious laziness is real laziness ; conscious
laziness is not complete laziness, because there is still some
clarity in it. Distraction comes from letting the spirit
wander about; laziness comes from the spirit not yet
being pure. Distraction is much easier to correct than lazi-
ness. It is as in sickness : if one feels pains and itchings,
one can help them with remedies, but laziness is like
a disease that is attended by loss of feeling. Distraction
can be overcome, confusion can be straightened out,
but laziness and absent-mindedness are heavy and dark.
Distraction and confusion at least have a place, but in
laziness and absent-mindedness the anima alone is active.
In inattention the animus is still present, but in laziness
pure darkness rules. If one becomes sleepy during medita-
tion, that is an effect of laziness. Breathing alone serves
to remove laziness. Although the breath that flows in
and out through the nose is not the true breath, the
flowing in and out of the true breath is connected
with it.

While sitting, one must, therefore, always keep the
heart quiet and the power concentrated. How can the
heart be made quiet? By breathing. The heart alone
must be conscious of the flowing in and out of the breath ;
it must not be heard with the ears. If it is not heard,
then the breathing is light ; if light, it is pure. If it can
be heard, then the breathing power is heavy ; if heavy,
then it is troubled ; if it is troubled, then laziness and

absent-mindedness develop and one wants to sleep. That
is self-evident.

How to use the heart correctly during breathing
must be understood. It is use without use. One need only
let the Light fall quite gently on the hearing. This
sentence contains a secret meaning. What does it mean
to let the Light fall ? It is the radiance of the Light of
one's own eyes. The eye looks inward only and not
outward. To sense brightness without looking outward
means to look inward ; it has nothing to do with an actual
looking within. What does hearing mean ? It is hearing
the Light of one's own ear. The ear listens only within and
does not listen to what is outside. To sense brightness
without listening to what is outside, is to listen to what is
within ; it has nothing to do with actually listening to
what is within. In this sort of hearing, one only hears that
there is no sound ; in this kind of seeing, one only sees
that no shape is there. If the eye is not looking outward
and the ear is not harkening outward, they close themselves
and are inclined to sink inward. Only when one looks
and harkens inward does the organ not go outward nor
sink inward. In this way laziness and absent-mindedness
are done away with. That is the union of the seed and the
Light of the sun and moon.

If, as a result of laziness, one becomes sleepy, one
should stand up and walk about. When the spirit has
become clear one can sit down again. If there is time in
the morning, one may sit during the burning of an incense
candle, that is the best. In the afternoon, human affairs
interfere and one can therefore easily fall into laziness.
It is not necessary to have an incense candle. But one
must lay aside all complications and sit quite still for u
time. In the course of time there will be success without
one's getting lazy and falling asleep.

The chief thought of this part is that the most important thing
about the circulation of the Light is making the breathing rhyth-
mical. The further the work advances, the deeper becomes the
teaching. The pupil must bring heart and breathing into relation-
ship during the circulation of the Light in order to avoid the burden
of laziness and distraction. The Master fears lest, during the
seance, when the beginners have lowered their lids, confused
fantasies may arise, because of which, the heart will begin to beat
so that it is difficult to guide. Therefore he teaches the work of
counting the breath and fixing the thoughts of the heart in order to
prevent the power of the spirit from flowing outward.

Because breath comes out of the heart, unrhythmical breath-
ing comes from the heart's unrest. Therefore one must breathe
in and out quite softly so that it remains inaudible to the ear,
and only the heart quietly counts the breaths. When the heart
forgets the number of breaths, that is a sign that the heart has
gone off into the outer world. Then one must hold the heart
steadfast. If the ear does not listen attentively, or the eyes do
not look at the back of the nose, it often happens that the heart
runs off outside, or that sleep comes. That is a sign that the con-
dition is going over into confusion and absent-mindedness, and
the seed-spirit must be brought into order again. If, in lowering
the lids and taking direction from the nose, the mouth is not
tightly closed and the teeth are not clenched firmly together,
it can easily happen that the heart hastens outward ; then one
must close the mouth quickly and clench the teeth together. The
five senses order themselves according to the heart, and the spirit
must call the breathing-power to aid, in order that heart and breath
are harmonized. In this way there is need at most of daily work
of a few quarter-hours for heart and breathing to come of them-
selves into the right sort of collaboration and harmony. Then
one need no longer count and breathing becomes rhythmical of
its own accord. When the breathing is rhythmical the mistakes
of laziness and distraction disappear of their own accord.

5. Mistakes During the Circulation of the Light

Master Lii Tzu said : Your work will gradually draw
itself together and mature, but before you reach the con-
dition in which you sit like a withered tree before a cliff,
there are many other possibilities of error which I would
like to bring to your special attention. These conditions
are only recognized when they have been personally
experienced. I will enumerate them here. My school
differs from the Buddhist yoga school (Chao Tsung) (16),
in that it has confirmatory signs for each step of the way.
First I would like to speak of the mistakes and then of the
confirmatory signs.

When one sets out to carry out one's decision, care
must be taken to see that everything can proceed in a
comfortable, easy manner. Too much must not be de-
manded of the heart. One must be careful that, quite
automatically, heart and power correspond to one another.
Only then can a state of quietness be attained. During
this quiet state the right conditions and the right place
must be provided. One must not sit down (to meditate)
in the midst of frivolous affairs. That is to say, one must
not have any vacuities in the mind. All entanglements
must be put aside and one must be supreme and in-
dependent. Nor must the thoughts be directed toward the
right procedure. If too much trouble is taken there* is
danger of doing this. I do not mean that no trouble
is to be taken, but the right behaviour lies in the middle
way between being and non-being. If one can attain
purposelessness through purpose, then the thing has been
grasped. Supreme and without confusion, one goes along
in an independent way. Furthermore, one must not fall
victim to the ensnaring world. The ensnaring world is
where the five kinds of dark demons disport themselves.

This is the case, for example, when, after fixation,
one has chiefly thoughts of dry wood and dead ashes,
and few thoughts of the resplendent spring on the great
earth. In this way one sinks into the world of darkness.
The power is cold there, breathing is heavy, and many
images of coldness and decay display themselves. If
one tarries there long one enters the world of plants
and stones.

Nor must a man be led astray by the ten thousand
ensnarements. This happens if, after the quiet state
has begun, one after another all sorts of ties suddenly
appear. One wants to break through them and cannot ;
one follows them, and feels relieved by this. This means
the master has become a servant. If a man tarries in this
state long he enters the world of illusory desires.

At best, one goes to Heaven ; at the worst, one goes
among the fox-spirits (17). Such a fox-spirit might also
occupy himself in the famous mountains enjoying the wind
and the moon, the flowers and fruits, and taking his
pleasure in coral trees and jewelled grass. But after
he has been occupied thus for three to five hundred years,
or at the most, for a couple of thousand years, his reward
is over and he is born again into the world of turmoil.

All of these are wrong paths. When a man knows
the wrong paths, he can then inquire into the confirma-
tory signs.

The meaning of this section (18) is to call attention to the
wrong paths of meditation so that one can enter the place of power
instead of the cave of fantasy. This is the world of demons.
This, for example, is the case if one sits down to meditate, and sees
light flames or bright colours appear, or if one sees Bodhisatvas
and gods approach, or any other similar fantasies. Or, if one is not
successful in uniting power and breathing, if the water of the
kidneys cannot rise, but presses downward, the primordial power
becomes .cold and the breathing heavy. Then the gentle light

powers of the great Earth are too few, and the empty fantasy-
world is entered. Or, when one has sat a long time, ideas rise up
in crowds and one tries to stop them, but it cannot be done ; one
submits to being driven by them and feels easier. When this
happens, one must under no circumstances go on with medita-
tion but must get up and walk around a little while until heart
and power are again in unison ; only then can one return to medita-
tion. In meditating, a man must have a sort of conscious intuition,
so that he feels power and breathing unite in the field of the
Elixir ; he must feel that a warm release belonging to the true
Light begins to stir dimly. Then he has found the right place.
When this right place has been found, one is released from the
danger of getting into the world of illusory desire or dark demons.

6. Confirmatory Experiences during the Circula-
tion of the Light

Master Lii Tzu said : There are many kinds of con-
firmatory experiences. One must not content oneself with
small demands but must rise to the thought that all
living creatures have to be freed. It is not permissible to
be trivial and irresponsible in heart. One must strive to
. make deeds prove one's words.

If, when there is quiet, the spirit has continuously
and uninterruptedly a sense of great gaiety as if intoxicated
or freshly bathed, it is a sign that the Light principle in
Hhe whole bodv is harmonious ; then the Golden Flower
begins to bud. When, furthermore, all openings are quiet,
and the silver moon stands in the middle of Heaven, and
one has the f eeling that the great Earth is a world of light
*and brilliancy, that is a sign that the body of the heart
opens itself to clarity. It is a sign that the Golden Flower
is opening.

Furthermore, the whole body feels strong and firm
so that it fears neither storm nor frost. Things by which

54 .j&0

other men are displeased, when I meet them, cannot
cloud the brightness of the seed of the spirit. Yellow
gold fills the house ; the steps are white jade. Rotten
and stinking things on Earth that come in contact with
one breath of the true power will immediately live again.
Red blood becomes milk. The fragile body of the flesh is
sheer gold and diamonds. That is a sign that the Golden
Flower is crystallized.

The Book of Successful Contemplation (Ying Kuan
Ching) says : The sun sinks in the Great Water and
magic pictures of trees in rows arise. The setting of
the sun means that in Chaos (in the world before
phenomena, that is, the intelligible world), a foundation
is laid : that is the condition free of opposites (wu chi).
Highest good is like water, pure and spotless. It is the
ruler of the Great Polarity, the god who is revealed in the
sign for that which greatly disturbs, ChSn (19). Chen
is also symbolized by wood, wherefore the image of trees
in rows appears. A sevenfold row of trees means the
light of the seven body-openings (or heart-openings).
In the north-west is the direction of the creative. When
it moves on one place farther, the abysmal is there.
The sun which sinks into the Great Water is the image
for the creative and abysmal. The abysmal is the direction
of midnight (mouse, Tzu x north). At the winter solstice
the thunder (Chin) is in the middle of the Earth quite
hidden and covered up. Only when the sign Chin is
reached, does the Light-pole come over the earth again.
That is the picture representing the row of trees. The
rest can be correspondingly inferred.

The second part refers to the building of the founda-
tion on this. The great world is like ice, a glassy world
of jewels. The brilliancy of the Light is gradually
crystallized. That is why a great terrace arises and upon

it, in the course of time, Buddha appears. When the
Golden Being appears who should it be but Buddha ?
For Buddha is the Golden Saint of the Great Enlighten-
ment. This is a great confirmatory experience.

Now there are three confirmatory experiences which
can be tested. The first is that, when one has entered
the state of meditation, the gods (20) are in the valley.
Men are heard talking as though at a distance of several
hundred paces, each one quite clear. But the sounds
are all like an echo in a valley. One can always hear them,
but never oneself. This is called the presence of the
gods in the valley.

At times the following can be experienced : as soon
as one is quiet, the Light of the eyes begins to blaze up,
so that everything before one becomes quite bright as
if one were in a cloud. If one opens one's eyes and
seeks the body, it is not to be found any more. This is
called : In the empty chamber it grows light. Inside and
outside, everything is equally light. "That is a very
favourable sign. Or, when one sits in meditation, the
fleshly body becomes quite shining like silk or jade. It
seems difficult to remain sitting ; one feels as if drawn
upward. This is called : The spirit returns and pushes
against Heaven. In time, one can experience it in such
a way that one really floats upward.

And now it is possible to leave all three of these
experiences. But not everything ean be expressed.
Different things appear to each person according to his
gifts. If one experiences these things, it is a sign of a
good aptitude. With these things it is just as it is when
one drinks water. One can tell for oneself whether the
water is warm or cold. In the same way a man must
convince himself about these experiences, then only are
they real.

7. The Living Manner of the Circulation of the

Light

Master Lii Tzu said : When there is gradual success
in producing the circulation of the Light, a man must
not give up his ordinary occupation in doing it. The
ancients said : When occupations come to us, we must
accept them ; when things come to us, we must understand
them from the ground up. If the occupations are regulated
by correct thoughts, the Light is not scattered by outside
things, but circulates according to its own law. Even
the still-invisible circulation of the Light gets started this
way, how much more then is it the case with the true
circulation of the Light which has already manifested
itself clearly. When in ordinary life one has the ability
always to react to things by reflexes only, without any
admixture of a thought of others or of oneself, that is
a circulation of the Light arising out of circumstances.
It is the first secret.

If, early in the morning, a man can rid himself of all
entanglements and meditate from one to two double
hours, and then can orientate himself toward all activities
and outside things in a purely objective, reflex way, and
if this can be continued without any interruption, then
after two or three months, all the perfected Ones come
from Heaven and sanctify such behaviour.

The preceding section deals with the blissful fields that are
entered when one succeeds in the work. The aim of this part is to
show the pupils how they must shape their work more finely day
by day so that they can hope for an early attainment of the Elixir
of Life. How does it happen that the Master just here speaks
of the fact that a man ought not to give up his calling in life as a
citizen ? It might be thought from this that the Master wanted
to prevent the pupil from attaining the Elixir of Life quickly.
He who knows replies to this : Not at all ! The Master is concerned

lest the pupil may not have fulfilled his karma, therefore he speaks
in this way. Now if the work has led into the blissful fields, the
heart is like the reflecting surface of water. When things come, it
mirrors- things ; when they go, spirit and power spontaneously
unite and do not allow themselves to be carried away by outside
things. That is what the Master means when he says : Every
interference of the thought with other people and with oneself
must be completely given up. When the pupil succeeds in con-
centrating with true thoughts on the place of power, he does not
have to start the Light circulating, and the Light circulates by
itself. But when the Light circulates, the Elixir is made spon-
taneously, and the performance of worldly tasks at the same time
is not a hindrance. It is different at the beginning of the work of
meditation when spirit and power are still scattered and confused.
If worldly affairs cannot then be kept at a distance, and a quiet
place found where one can concentrate with all one's power, and
thus avoid all disturbances from ordinary occupations, then one is
perhaps industrious in the morning and certainly lazy in the
evening. How long would it take in this way till a man attained to
the real secrets ? Therefore it is said : When one begins to apply
the work, one should put aside household affairs. And, if that is
not wholly possible, someone ought to be engaged to look after
them, so that one can take pains with complete attention. But
when the work is so far advanced that secret confirmations are
experienced, it does not matter if, at the same time, the ordinary
affairs are put in order, so that one can fulfil one's karma. This
means the living manner of the circulation of the Light. Long
Ago, the true man of the purple Polar-Light (Tzu-yang Chen Jen),
made a saying : When a man lives in contact with the world,
and yet still in harmony with the Light, then the round is round
and the angular has angles ; then he lives among men concealed,
yet visible, different, and yet the same, and none can compass it ;
then no one takes note of our secret life and being. The living
manner of the circulation of the Light has just this meaning : To
live in contact with the world and yet in harmony with the Light.

8. A Magic Spell for the Far Journey

Master Lii Tzii said : Yii Ch'ing has left behind him
a magic spell for the Far Journey :

" Four words crystallize the spirit in the place of power.
In the sixth month the white snow is suddenly seen to fly.
At the third watch the disk of the sun sends out shining rays.
On the water blows the wind of gentleness.
Wandering in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power of the receptive.
And the deeper secret within the secret :
The land that is nowhere, that is the true home . . . . "

These verses are full of mystery. The meaning is :
The most important thing in the Great Meaning is the
four words : non-aetion in action. Non-action prevents
a man from becoming entangled in form and image (sub-
stantiality). Action in non-action prevents a man from
sinking into numbing emptiness and a dead nothingness.
The effect depends entirely on the central One ; the freeing
of the effect is in the two eyes. The two eyes are like
the pole of the Great Wain which turns the whole of
creation ; they cause the poles of Light and Darkness to
rotate. The Elixir depends from beginning to end on
the One ; the metal in the middle of the water, that is,
the lead in the water-region. Heretofore we have spoken
of the circulation of the Light, indicating thereby the
initial release which works from without upon what lies
within. This is to aid one in obtaining the Master. It is
for the pupils in the beginning stages. They go through
the two lower transitions in order to gain the upper one.
After the sequence of events is clear and the nature of
the release is known, Heaven no longer withholds the
Meaning, but reveals the ultimate truth. Disciples !
keep it secret and hold to it strictly !

The circulation of the Light is the inclusive term.

The further the work advances, the more can the Golden
Flower bloom. But there is a still more marvellous
kind of circulation. Till now we have worked from the
outside on what is within ; now we tarry in the centre and
rule what is external. Hitherto, it was a service in aid
of the Master ; now it is a dissemination of the commands
of this Master. The whole relationship is now reversed.
If one wants to penetrate the more delicate regions by
this method, one must first see to it that body and heart
are completely controlled, that one is quite free and at
peace, letting go of all entanglements, untroubled by the
slightest excitement, with the Heavenly Heart exactly
in the middle. Then let one lower the lids of the two
eyes as if one received a holy edict, a summons to the
minister. Who would dare disobey ? Then one illumines
the house of the abysmal (water, K'an) with both eyes.
Wherever the Golden Flower appears, the true Light of
polarity goes out to meet it. The principle of that which
adheres to (lightness, Li), is light outside and dark
within ; it is the body of the creative. Darkness enters
and becomes master. The result is that the heart
(consciousness), becomes dependent on things, is directed
outward, and is tossed about on the stream. When the
rotating Light shines within the heart, it does not become
dependent on things, the power of the Dark is limited,
and the Golden Flower shines with concentration. It is
then the collected Light of polarity. Things which are
related attract each other. Thus the polarity Light-
line of the abysmal presses upward. It is not only the
Light in the abyss, but it is creative Light meeting
creative Light. As soon as these two substances meet
each other, they unite inseparably, and unceasing life
begins ; it conies and goes, rises and falls of itself, in the
house of the primordial power. One is aware of effulgence

«0

and infinity. The whole body feels lighter and would
like to flv. This is the state of which it is said : Clouds
fill the thousand mountains. Gradually it [life] goes here
and there quite quietly ; it rises and falls imperceptibly.
The pulse stands still and breathing stops. This is the
moment of true creative unity, the state of which it is
said : The moon gathers up the ten thousand waters.
In the midst of this darkness, the Heavenly Heart suddenly
begins a movement. This is the return of the one Light,
the time when the child comes to life.

But the details of this must be carefully explained.
When a person looks at something, listens to something,
eyes and ears move and follow the things until they have
passed. These movements are all underlings, and when
the Heavenly ruler follows them in their tasks, it means :
To live together with demons.

If now, during every movement and every moment
of rest, a person lives together with people and not with
demons, then the Heavenly ruler is the true man.
When he moves and we move with him, the movement is
the root of Heaven. When he is quiet and we are quiet
with him, this quietness is the cave of the moon. When
he continues to alternate movement and quietness, one
ought to go on with him unceasingly in movement and
quietness. If he rises and falls with inhaling and exhaling,
we must rise and fall with him. That is what is called
going to and fro between the root of Heaven and the cave
of the moon.

When the Heavenly Heart still preserves calm, move-
ment before the right time is a fault of softness. When
the Heavenly Heart has already moved, the movement
that follows afterwards, corresponding with it, is a fault
of rigidity. As soon as the Heavenly Heart is stirring,
one must immediately mount with all one's feeling to the

c * 61 ,

house of the creative. Thus the Light of the spirit sees
the summit that is the leader. This movement is in
accord with the time. The Heavenly Heart rises to the
summit of the creative, where it expands in complete
freedom. Then suddenly it wants the deepest silence,
and one must lead it speedily and with one's whole being
into the yellow castle. Thus the eyes behold the central
yellow dwelling place of the spirit.

When the desire for silence comes, not a single thought
arises ; he who is looking inward suddenly forgets that
he looks. At this time, body and heart must be left
completely free. All entanglements disappear without
trace. Then I no longer know at what place the house
of my spirit and my crucible are. If a man wants to make
certain of his body, he cannot get at it. This condition
is the penetration of Heaven into Earth, the time when all
wonders return to their roots.

The One is the circulation of the Light. If one begins,
it is at first scattered and one tries to collect it ; the six
senses are not active. This is the care and nourishment
of one's own origin, the filling up of the oil when one
goes to receive life. When, one is far enough to have
gathered it, one feels light and free and need take no
further trouble. This is the quieting of the spirit in the
space of the ancestors, the taking possession of former
Heaven.

When one is so far advanced that every shadow and
every echo has disappeared, so that one is quite quiet and
firm, it is safe within the cave of power, where all that
is miraculous returns to its roots. The {dace is noi
changed but divides itself. It is incorporeal space where
a thousand and ten thousand places are one place. The
time is not changed, but divides itself. It is immeasurable
time when all the aeons are like a moment.

,<*

As long as the heart has not attained complete peace,
it cannot move itself. One moves the movement and
forgets the movement ; this is not movement in itself.
Therefore it is said : If, when stimulated by external
things, one is moved, it is the instinct of the being. If,
when not stimulated by external things, one is moved,
it is the movement of Heaven. The being that is placed
over against Heaven, can fall and come under the domina-
tion of the instincts. The instincts are based upon the
fact that there are external things. They are thoughts
that go on beyond their own position. Then movement
leads to movement. But, when no idea arises, the right
ideas come. That is the true idea. If things are quiet
and one is quite firm, the release of Heaven suddenly
moves. Is this not a movement without purpose ? Action
in inaction has the same meaning.

As to the beginning of the poem, the two first lines
refer entirely to the activity of the Golden Flower. The
two next lines are concerned with the mutual inter-
penetration of sun and moon. The sixth month is the
adhering (Li) fire. The white snow that flies, is the true
darkness of polarity in the middle of the fire sign, that is
about to turn into the receptive. The third watch is
the abysmal (K'an) water. The sun's disk is the one
polar line in the sign for water, which is about to turn
into the creative. In this is contained the way to take
the sign for the abysmal and the way to reverse the sign
for the adhering (fire Li). The following two lines have
to do with the activity of the pole of the Great Wain, the
rise and fall of the whole release of polarity. Water is
the sign of the abysmal ; the eye is the wind of softness
(Sun). The light of the eyes illumines the house of the
abysmal, and controls there the seed of the great Light.
" In Heaven " means the house of the creative (Ch'ien).

*' Wandering, in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power of the
receptive." This shows how the spirit penetrates the
power, and how Heaven penetrates the Earth ; this
happens so that the fire can be nourished.

Finally, the two last lines point to the deepest secret
which cannot be dispensed with from the beginning to the
end. It is the washing of the heart and the purification
of the thoughts ; it is the bath. The holy science takes
as a beginning the knowledge of where to stop, and as
an end, stopping at the highest good. Its beginning is
beyond polarity and it empties again beyond polarity.

Buddha speaks of the transient, the creator of
consciousness, as being the fundamental truth of religion.
And, in our Taoism, the expression " to produce
emptiness " contains the whole work of completing life
and essence. All three religions agree in the one proposi-
tion, the finding of the spiritual Elixir in order to pass
from death to life. In what does this spiritual Elixir
consist ? It means forever tarrying in purposelessness.
The deepest secret in our teaching, the secret of the bath,
is confined to the work of making the heart empty. There-
with the heart is set at rest. What I have revealed here
in a word is the fruit of decades of effort.

If you are not yet clear as to how far all three parts
can be present in one part, I will make it clear to you
through the threefold Buddhist contemplation about
emptiness, delusion, and the centre.

Emptiness comes as the first of the three contempla-
tions. All things are looked upon as empty. Then follows
delusion. Although it is known that they are empty,
things are not destroyed, but a man attends to his affairs
in the midst of the emptiness. But though one does not
destroy things, neither does one pay attention to them ;
this is contemplation of the centre. While practising

contemplation of the empty, one also knows that one
cannot destroy the ten thousand things, and still one
does not notice them. In this way the three contempla-
tions fall together. But, after all, strength is in visioning
the empty. Therefore, when one practises contemplation
of emptiness, emptiness is certainly empty, but delusion
is empty also, and the centre is empty. It needs a great
strength to practise contemplation of delusion ; then
delusion is really delusion, but emptiness is also delusion,
and the centre is also delusion. Being on the way of the
centre, one also creates images of the emptiness, but they
are not called empty, but are called central. One practises
also contemplation of delusion, but one does not call it
delusion, one calls it central. As to what has to do with
the centre, more need not be said.

This section mentions first Yu Ch'ing's magical charm for the
Far Journey. The magical charm states that the secret wonder of
the Meaning is the developing of something out of nothing. In
that spirit and power unite in crystallized form, there appears,
in the course of time, in the middle of the emptiness of nothing,
a point of the true fire. During this time, the more quiet the spirit
becomes, the brighter is the fire. The brilliance of the fire is
compared with the sun's heat in the sixth month. Because the
blazing fire causes the water of the abysmal to vaporize, the stean?
is heated, and when it has passed the boiling point, it mounts
upward like flying snow. It is meant by this that snow is seen to
fly in the sixth month. But because the water is vaporized by the
fire, the true power is awakened ; yet, when Darkness is at rest,
light begins to move ; it is like midnight. Therefore adepts
call this time the time of the living midnight. At this time, one
works at the power with the purpose of making it rise and flow
backward, and fall, flowing downward, like the turning of the wheel
of the rising sun. Therefore it is said : At the third watch, the
disk of the sun sends out shining rays. 1Ehe rotation method
makes use of breathing to blow on the fire of the gates of life : in this
way the ferae power is successfully brought to its original place.
Therefore it is said that the wind blows on the water. Out of the

single power of former Heaven, there develops the out- and the
in-going breath of later Heaven and its power to set aflame.

The way leads from the sacrum upward in a backward-
flowing manner to the summit of the creative, and on through
the house of the creative ; then it sinks through two stories in a
downward-flowing way into the solar plexus, and warms it. There-
fore it is said : Wandering in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power
of the receptive. Because the true power goes back into the
empty place, in time, power and form become rich and full ; body
and heart become glad and cheerful. If, by the work of the turning
of the Wheel of the Doctrine, this cannot be achieved, how other-
wise should one be able to enter upon this Far Journey ? What it
amounts to is this : The crystallized spirit flows back to the spirit-
fire, and by means of the greatest quiet, one fans the " fire in the
middle of the water ", which is in the middle of the cave. There-
fore it is said : And the deeper secret within the secret : the
Land that is nowhere, that is the true home.

The pupil has penetrated in his work into mysterious territory ;
but, if he does not know the method of melting, it is to be feared
that the Elixir of Life will not be produced. Therefore the Master
has revealed the secret strictly guarded by the former holy men.
When the pupil keeps the crystallized spirit fixed within the cave
of power, and, at the same time, lets greatest quietness hold sway,
then out of the obscure darkness, a something develops out of the
nothingness, that is, the Golden Flower of the Great One appears.
At this time the conscious Light is differentiated from the Light
of the essence. Therefore it is said : To move when stimulated
by external things, leads to its going downward and outward and
creating a man. That is conscious Light. If, at the time the true
power has been copiously gathered together, the pupil does not
let it flow downward and outward, but allows it to flow backward,
that is the Light of Life ; the method of the turning of the water-
wheel must be used. If one continues to turn, the true power
returns to the roots, drop by drop. Then the water-wheel stops,
the body is clean, the power is fresh. One single turning means
one Heavenly cycle, that which Master Chiu has called a small
Heavenly cycle. If one does not wait to use the power until it
has been collected sufficiently, it is then too tender and weak, and
the Elixir is not formed. If the power is there and not used, then it
becomes too old and rigid, and also the Elixir of Life will hardly be

produced. When it is neither too old nor too tender, then is the
right time to use it with intention. This is what Buddha means
when he says : The phenomenon flows into emptiness. This
is the sublimation of the seed into power. If the pupil does not
understand this principle, and lets the power stream away down-
ward, then the power forms into seed ; this is what is meant when
it is said : Emptiness finally flows into the phenomenon. But
every man who unites bodily with a woman feels pleasure first
and then bitterness ; when the seed has flowed out, the body is
tired and the spirit languid. It is quite different when the adept
lets spirit and power unite. That brings first purity and then
freshness ; when the seed is transformed, the body is healthy and
free. There is a tradition that the old Blaster P'eng grew to be 880
years old because he made use of serving maids to nourish his life,
but that is a misunderstanding. In reality, he used the method of
sublimation of spirit and power. In the Elixirs of Life symbols are
generally used, and in them the adhering fire (Li) is frequently
compared to a bride, and the water of the abyss to the boy (puer
aeternus). From this arose the misunderstanding about Master
P'eng having restored his virility through femininity. These are
mistakes that have forced their way in later.

But adepts can only use the means of overthrowing the
abysmal and the adhering (Li) when their purposes are sincerely
in the work, otherwise a pure mixture is not produced. The true
purpose is subject to the Earth. The colour of the Earth is yellow ;
therefore in books on the Life Elixir, it is symbolized by the
yellow germ. When the abysmal and the adhering (Li) unite,
the Golden Flower appears ; the golden colour is white, and there-
fore white snow is used as a symbol. But worldly people who do
not understand the secret words of the books of the Life Elixir,
have misunderstood yellow and white in that they have taken it
as a means of making gold out of stones. Is not that foolish ?

An ancient adept said : Formerly, every school knew this
jewel, only fools did not know it wholly. If we reflect on this we
see that the ancients really attained long life by the help of the*
seed-power present in their own bodies, and did not lengthen their
years by swallowing this or that sort of elixir. But worldly people
lose the roots and cling to the tree-tops. The Book of the
Elixir also says : When the right man (white magician) makes
use of wrong means, the wrong means work in the right way.

By this is meant the transformation of seed into power. " But if
the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the
wrong way." By this is meant the bodily union of man and
woman from which spring sons and daughters. The fool wastes the
most precious jewel of his body in uncontrolled pleasure, and does
not know how to conserve the power of his seed. When it is finished,
the body perishes. The Holy and Wise men have no other way of
taking care of their lives except by destroying lusts and safe-
guarding the seed. The seed that is conserved is transformed into
power, and the power, when there is enough of it, makes the
creatively strong body. The difference shown by ordinary people
depends only upon how they apply the downward-flowing way or
the backward-flowing way.

The whole meaning of this section is directed toward making
clear to the pupil the method of the filling up the oil in meeting life,
f Here the eyes are the chief thing. The two eyes are the handle of the
polar constellation. Just as Heaven turns about the polar star as a
centre point, so among.men the right intention must be the master.
Therefore the completion of the Life Elixir depends entirely on the
harmonizing of the right intention. Then, if it is said that the
foundation can be laid in a hundred days, first of all the degree
of industry in work must be taken into account, and the degree
of strength in the physical constitution. Whoever is eager in the
work, and has a strong constitution, succeeds more quickly in
turning back the water wheel of the river. When a person has
found the method of making thoughts and power harmonize with
one another, he can complete the Elixir within a hundred days.
But whoever is weak and lazy will not produce it even after the
hundred days. When the Elixir is completed, spirit and power are
pure and clear ; the heart is empty,' the essence manifest,
and the light of consciousness transforms . itself into the
Light of the essence. If the Light of the essence is held per-
manently, the abysmal and the adhering (fire Li) have intercourse
spontaneously. When the abysmal and the fire mix, the holy
fruit is borne. The ripening of the holy fruit is the effect of a great
Heavenly cycle. Further elucidation stops with the method of
the Heavenly cycle.

This book is concerned with the cultivation of life and shows
at first how one takes hold of it by looking at the bridge of one's
nose. The method of making firm and letting go is in another
book, the Hsu Ming Fang (Methods of Prolonging Life).

Remarks

1. This commentary probably comes from the seventeenth
or eighteenth century.

2. Ling Yen is the Buddhist Lankavatarasutra.

3. Heaven, earth, hell.

4. Light is meant here as a world-principle, the positive pole,
not as light that shines.

5. The four stages of re-birth are characterized here... The
re-birth (out of water and spirit), is the development of the
pneumatic body within the perishable body of the flesh. In this
there is shown a relationship to the thoughts of Paul and John.

6. The five-fold present spirit into which the good man is
transformed in his dark strivings at his death, is limited to the
region of the five senses, and is therefore still imprisoned on this
earth. Re-birth effects his transition into the sixth, the spiritual
realm.

7. A pupil of Lao Tzu.

8. The two psychic poles are here contrasted with one
another. They are represented as logos (heart, consciousness), to
be found under the fire sign, and eros (kidneys, sexuality), under
the water sign. The " natural " man lets both these forces work
outwardly (intellect and the process of procreation), and in this
way they " stream out " and are consumed. The adept turns
them inward and brings them together, whereby they fertilize one
another and thus produce a psychically red-blooded, and therefore
strong, life of the spirit.

9. The character "Ao", translated by "individuation"
is written with the symbol for " power ", inside an " enclosure *\
Thus it means the form of the entelechy imprinted in the monad.
It is the loosening of a unit of power and the veiling of it with the
seed-powers that lead to incarnation. The process is represented
as connected with a sound. Empirically it coincides with con-
ception. From that time on, there takes place an ever-advancing
" development ", " unfolding ", until birth brings the individual
to light. From then it continues automatically farther till the
power is exhausted and death ensues.

10. Lankoatdrasutra, Buddhist sutra.

11. Yin Fu Ching, Taoist sutra,

12. Su Win, a Taoist work of a later time which purports to
come from the mythical ruler Huang Ti.

18. Hie method of fixating contemplation (CMh Kuan), is

the meditation method of the Buddhist T'ien T'ai school. It
alternates between the fixation of the thoughts by breathing
practices, and contemplation. In the following, some of its
methods are taken over. The " conditions " are the " circum-
stances ", the " environment ", which, in conjunction with the
** causes " (yin), start the rotation of the illusion. In the " centre
of the conditions *', there is, quite literally, the " fixed pole in
the flight of phenomena ".

14. The Chinese character for " breath " (hsi) is made up
of the character tzic "of", "self", and the character hsin
" heart ", " consciousness ". It can also be interpreted as
" coming from the heart ", but, at the same time, it describes the
condition in which " the heart is at one with itself ", i.e. quietness.

15. A secret book of the sects of the golden life-pill.

16. In Japanese, Zen.

17. According to Chinese folk-lore, foxes can also cultivate
the Life-Elixir; they thus attain the capacity of transforming
themselves into human beings. They correspond to the nature
demons of Western mythology.

18. This section shows plainly a Buddhist influence. The
temptation mentioned here consists in one's being impelled by
these fantasies to take them as real, and to succumb to them.
(Compare the scene where Mephistopheles puts Faust to sleep by
means of his demon.)

19. Compare the I Cking, section Shuo Kua (the Signs).
Chin is the sign for thunder, spring, east, wood. The creative,
Heaven, in this division, is in the north-west. The abysmal is
in the north.

K'an , the abysmal Water,
the moon

Ch'ien

, the creative ,
Heaven .

Ken

Ken " keeping qu Jel,
the mountain,stilIr

Tu]_, seranily,

lake, mi sh

K'lin the receptive,
earth.

nC33.

E Chin , that vThich greatly
disturbs, Wood,
thunder

Li, fire , light,
Sun,M?amnth.

Sun , gentleness, wind
the penetrating

20. Compare Lao Tzu, Too TB Ching, section 6.

Summary x of the Chinese Concepts on which is based the idea of the
" Golden Flower " or Immortal " Body ".

Tao the undivided, Great One, gives rise to two opposite
reality principles, Darkness and Light, yin and yang. These are
at first thought of only as forces of nature apart from man. Later,
the sexual polarities and others as well, are derived from them.
From yin comes K l un, the receptive feminine principle ; from
yang comes ChHen, the creative masculine principle ; from yin
comes ming, life ; from yang, hsing or essence.

Each individual contains a central monad which, at the
moment of conception, splits into life and essence, ming and hsing.
These two are super-individual principles, and so can be related
to eros and logos.

In the personal bodily existence of the individual they are
represented by two other polarities, a p'o soul (or anima) and a
hun soul (or animus). All during the life of the individual these
two are in conflict, each striving for mastery. At death they
separate and go different ways. The anima sinks to earth as kuei,
a ghost-being. The animus rises and becomes shin, a revealing
spirit or god. Shin may in time return to Tao.

If the life-forces flow downward, that is, without let or
hindrance into the outer world, the anima is victorious over the
animus ; no " spirit body " or " Golden Flower " is developed,
and, at death, the ego is lost. If the life-forces are led through
the " backward-flowing " process, that is, conserved, and made
to " rise " instead of allowed to dissipate, the animus has been
victorioxis, and the ego persists after death. It is then possessed
of shin, the revealing spirit. A man who holds to the way of
conservation all through life may reach the stage of the " Golden
Flower ", which then frees the ego from the conflict of the
opposites, and it again becomes part of Tao, the undivided,
Great One.

1 This summary and the following diagram have been arranged by the English
translator.

Diagram of the Chinese Concepts concerned with the development
of the " Golden Flower ", or Immortal " Spirit Body ".

Dariwess/fiBminiBcaptHt-) »yin

i_ile.fak.cro5
(impersonal)

anima sac pb
(pcncmal)

Ghosl-being ik Kuei
(ckcaya after doath
«id rehjrns teearrh)

Tao

Cenrral
__mona^L_

in
incfcvidual

yang = Lighr, (masculine

_^. rising as Essence, logos

£ impersonal)

Golden Flower

hun ss anirnus

( personal )

Shin a: Retealinq spirir-

T (Vises afW deaih and
mau r«hjrn te Tao
CO

Galdan FloWer

^ff.*-"

1 As there is ample evidence in the text to show that Buddhist influences
represented the Golden Flower as coming ultimately only from the spiritual side,
that fact has been indicated by the dotted arrow leading down from shin. In
undiluted Chinese teaching, however, the creation of the " Golden Flower " depends
on the equal interplay of both the yang and yin forces.

COMMENTARY

C. G. JUNG

Introduction

1, Difficulties encountered by a European in trying to understand the East.

2. Modern psychology offers a possibility of understanding.

Fundamental Concepts

1. Tao.

2, Circular movement and the centre.

Phenomena of the Way

1. The disintegration of consciousness.

2. Animus and anima.

The Detachment of Consciousness from the Object.

The Fulfilment.

Summary.

Examples of European Mandaias.

INTRODUCTION

1. Difficulties encountered by a .. European in
trying to understand the east

A thorough Westerner in feeling, I am necessarily
deeply impressed by the strangeness of this Chinese text.
It is true that a certain knowledge of Eastern religions
and philosophies aids my intellect and intuition in under-
standing these ideas, partly at least, just as I can fathom
the paradoxes of primitive religious ideas " ethnologic-
ally ", or as a matter of the " comparative history of
religions ". This, in fact, is the Western way of hiding
one's own heart under the cloak of so-called scientific
understanding. We do it partly because of the miserable
vanite des savants which fears and rejects with horror
• any sign of living sympathy, and partly because an under-
standing that reaches the feelings might allow contact
with the foreign spirit to become a serious experience.
So-called scientific objectivity would therefore have
insisted on reserving this text for the philological acuity
of sinologues, and would have guarded it jealously from
any other interpretation. But Richard Wilhelm has
penetrated too deeply into the secret and mysterious life
of Chinese wisdom for him to have allowed such a pearl
of great insight to be shelved by any one of the special
sciences. It is an especial honour and pleasure that his
choice of a psychological commentator has fallen upon me.

However, in this way, this rare piece of general
knowledge runs the risk of being stowed away upon the
shelf of yet another of the special sciences. Yet whoever

seeks to minimize the merits of Western science is under-
mining the main support of the European mind. Science
is not, indeed, a perfect instrument, but none the less it is
an invaluable, superior one which only works harm when
taken as an end in itself. Scientific method must serve ;
it errs when it usurps a throne. It must be ready to
serve all branches of science, because each, by reason of.
its insufficiency, has need of support from the others.
Science is the best tool of the Western mind and with it
more doors can be opened than with bare hands. Thus it
is part and parcel of our understanding and only clouds
our insight when it lays claim to being the one and only
way of comprehending. But it is the East that has taught
us another, wider, more profound, and a higher under-
standing, that is, understanding through life. We know
this way only vaguely, as a mere shadowy sentiment
culled from religious terminology, and therefore we gladly
dispose of Eastern " wisdom " in quotation marks, and
push it away into the obscure territory of faith and
superstition. But in this way Eastern " realism " is
completely misunderstood. It does not consist of senti-
mental, exaggeratedly mystical, intuitions bordering on
the pathological and emanating from ascetic recluses and
cranks ; the wisdom of the East is based on practical
knowledge coming from the flower of Chinese intelligence,
which we have not the slightest justification for under-
valuing.

This assertion may, perhaps, seem extremely bold,
and therefore will incite a certain amount of doubt, but,
considering the extraordinary dearth of knowledge about
the material, doubt is pardonable. Moreover, the strange-
ness of the material is so arresting that our embarrass-
ment as to how and when the Chinese world of thought
might be joined to ours, is quite understandable. When

faced with this problem of grasping the ideas of the East,
the usual mistake of the Western man is like that of the
student in Faust. Ill-advised by the devil, he con-
temptuously turns his back on science, and, getting a whiff
of eastern ecstatics, takes over their yoga practices quite
literally, only to become a pitiable imitator. (Theosophy
is our best example of this mistake.) And so he abandons
the one safe foundation of the Western mind, and loses
himself in a mist of words and ideas which never would
have originated in European brains, and which can never
be profitably grafted upon them.

An ancient adept has said : But if the wrong man
uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong
way. This Chinese saying, unfortunately all too true,
stands in sharp contrast to our belief in the " right "
method irrespective of the man who applies it. In reality,
when it comes to things like these, everything depends
on the man and little or nothing on the method. The
latter is only the way and direction laid down by a man
in order that his action may be the true expression of his
nature. If it fails to be this, then the method is nothing
more than an affectation, something artificially pieced on,
rootless and sapless, serving only the illegitimate goal of
self-deception. It becomes a means of fooling oneself
and of evading what is perhaps the implacable law of
one's being.

This has nothing whatever to do with the earth-born
quality and sincerity of Chinese thought. On the contrary,
it is the denial of one's own being, a self-betrayal to
strange and unclean gods, a cowardly trick for the purpose
of usurping psychic superiority, everything in fact, which
is profoundly contrary to the meaning of Chinese
** method ". Their views result from a way of life that
is complete, genuine, and true in the fullest sense ; they

are views that come from that ancient, cultural life of
China which has grown both logically and coherently from
deep instincts, and which, for us, is forever remote and
inimitable.

Western imitation of the East is doubly tragic in that
it comes from a psychological misunderstanding as sterile
as are the modern escapades in New Mexico, the
blissful South Sea Islands, and Central Africa, where
" primitivity" is being staged in all seriousness, in order
that western civilized man may covertly slip out of his
menacing duties, his Hie Rkodus hie salta. It is not for
us to imitate what is organically foreign, or worse still,
to send out missionaries to foreign peoples ; it is our task
to build up our own Western culture, which sickens with
a thousand ills. This has to be done on the spot, and into
the work must be drawn the real European as he is in his
western commonplaceness, with his marriage problems,
his neuroses, his social and political illusions, and his
whole philosophical disorientation.

We should do well to confess at once, that, funda-
mentally speaking, we do not understand the utter
unworldliness of a text like this, indeed, that we do not
want to understand it. Have we, perhaps, an inkling that
a mental attitude which can direct the glance inward to
that extent owes its detachment from the world to the
fact that those men have so completely fulfilled the
instinctive demands of their natures that little or nothing
prevents them from perceiving the invisible essence of the
world ? Can it be, perhaps, that the condition of such
knowledge is freedom from those desires, ambitions, and
passions, which bind us to the visible world, and must
not this freedom result from the intelligent fulfilment of
instinctive demands, rather than from a premature
repression, or one growing out of fear ? Do we only

become free to know the world of the mind when the
laws of earth have been obeyed ? The man who knows
the history of Chinese culture, and who besides has
carefully studied the i" Ching, that book of wisdom
permeating all Chinese thought for thousands of years,
will not lightly wave aside these doubts. He will know,
moreover, that in the Chinese sense, the views set forth
in our text are nothing extraordinary, but are quite

inescapable, psychological conclusions.

. For a long time, spirit, and the passion of the spirit,

were the greatest values and the things most worth
striving for in our peculiar Christian culture of the mind.
Only after the decline of the Middle Ages, that is, in the
course of the nineteenth century, when spirit began to
degenerate into intellect, there set in a reaction against
the unbearable domination of intellectualism which led
to the pardonable mistake of confusing intellect with
spirit, and blaming the latter for the misdeeds of the
former. Intellect does, in fact, violate the soul when it
tries to possess itself of the heritage of the spirit. It is
in no way fitted to do this, because spirit is something
higher than intellect in that it includes not only the latter,
but the feelings as well. It is a line or principle of life
that strives after superhuman, shining heights ; but, in
opposition to it, stands the dark, earth-born, feminine
principle with its emotionality and instinctiveness reaching
far back into the depths of time, and into the roots of
physiological continuity. Without a doubt, these concepts
are purely intuitive visions, but one cannot dispense with
them if one tries to understand the nature of the human
soul. China could not dispense with them because, as the
history of Chinese philosophy shows, it has never gone
so far from central psychic facts as to lose itself in a one-
sided over-development and over-valuation of a single

psychic function. , Therefore, the Chinese have never
failed to recognize the paradoxes and the polarity inherent
in all life. The opposites always balance on the scales —
a sign of high culture. Onesidedness, though it lends
momentum, is a mark of barbarism. Therefore, I can
only take the reaction which begins in the West against
the intellect in favour of eros, and in favour of intuition,
as a mark of cultural advance, a widening of consciousness
beyond the too narrow limits set by a tyrannical intellect.

But it is far from my wish to undervalue the
tremendous differentiation of western intellect, because,
measured by it, eastern intellect can be described as
childish. (Obviously this has nothing to do with intelli-
gence.) If we should succeed in bringing another, or still
a third function to the dignity accorded intellect, then the
West could expect to surpass the East by a very great
deal. It is therefore lamentable indeed when the European
is false to himself and imitates the East or " affects " it
in any way. He would have so much greater possibilities
if he would remain true to himself and develop out of His
own nature all that the East has brought forth from its
inner being in the course of the centimes.

In general, and looked at from the incurably external
point of view of the intellect, it will seem as if the things
so highly valued by the East were not desirable for us.
Above all, mere intellect cannot fathom the practical
importance eastern ideas might have for us, and that is
why it can classify these ideas as philosophical, and
ethnological curiosities and- nothing more. The lack of
comprehension goes, so far, that even learned sinologues
have not understood the practical application of the
I Ching, and have therefore looked on the book as a
collection of abstruse magic *jfaarms.

2. Modern Psychology offers a Possibility of

Understanding

My experience in my practice has been such as to
reveal to me a quite new and unexpected approach to
eastern wisdom. But it must be well understood that
I did not have as a starting point a more or less adequate
knowledge of Chinese philosophy. On the contrary,

: when I began my life-work in the practice of psychiatry
and psychotherapy, I was completely ignorant of Chinese
philosophy, and it is only later that my professional
experiences have shown me that in my technique I had
been unconsciously led along that secret way which for
centuries has been the preoccupation of the best minds
of the East. This might have been taken for subjective
imagination — one reason for my previous hesitancy in
publishing anything on the subject — but Wilhelm, that
expert authority on the soul of China, has openly confirmed
the coincidence for me. In so doing, he has given me the
courage to write about a Chinese text which, though
belonging in essence to the mysterious shadows of the
eastern mind, yet at the same time, and this is important,
shows striking parallels to the course of psychic develop-
ment in my patients, none of whom is Chinese.

In order to make this strange fact more intelligible
to the reader, it must be mentioned that just as the
human body shows a common anatomy overand above all
racial differences, so too, does the psyche possess a common
substratum. I have called the latter the collective

'* unconscious. As a common hurpan heritage it transcends
all differences of culture anj3 consciousness and- does not
consist merely of contents capable of becoming conscious,
but of latent dispositions ^toward identical reactions.
Thus the fact of the eoH6ctive unconscious is simply

83 " '.-■•'■

the psychic expression of identity of brain-structure
irrespective of all racial differences. By its means can
be explained the analogy, going even as far as identity,
between various myth-themes and symbols, and the
possibility of human understanding in general. The
various lines of psychic development start from one
common stock whose roots reach Back infx> the past. Here
top lies the psychological parallelism with ani?na|^ ffe

Taken purely psychologically, it means that we hai%
common instincts of ideation (imagination), and of action.
All- conscious imagination and action have grown out of
these unconscious prototypes, and remain bound up with
them. Especially is this the case when consciousness
has not attained any high degree of clarity, that is, when,
in all its functions, it is more dependent on the instincts
than on the conscious will, more governed by affect than
by rational judgment. This condition ensures a primitive
health of the psyche, which, however, immediately becomes
*lack of adaptiveness as soon as there arise circumstances
that call for a higher moral effort. Instincts suffice only
for a nature which, on the whole, remains on one level.
An individual who is more guided by unconscious choice
than by the conscious one, tends therefore toward out-
spoken psychic conservatism. This is the reason the
primitive does not change in the course of thousands of
years, and it is also the cause of his fearing everything
strange and unusual. Were he less conservative, it might
lead to maladaptation, and thus to the greatest of psychic
dangers, namely a kind of neurosis. A higher and wider
consciousness which only comes by means of assimilating
the unfamiliar, tends toward autonomy, toward revolu-
tion against the old gods who are nothing other than those
powerful, unconscious, primordial images which, up to
this time, have held consciousness in thrall.

The more powerful and independent consciousness
becomes, and with it the conscious will, the more is the
unconscious forced into the background. When this
happens, it becomes easily possible for the conscious
structures to be detached from the unconscious images.
Gaining thus in freedom, they break the chains of mere
instinctiveness, and finally arrive at a state that is deprived
of, or contrary to instinct. Consciousness thus torn from
its roots and no longer able to appeal to the authority of
the primordial images, possesses a Promethean freedom,
it is true, but it also partakes of the nature of a godless
hyhris. It soars above the earth, even above mankind,
but the danger of capsizing is there, not for every
individual, to be sure, but collectively for the weak
members of such a society, who again Promethean-like,
are bound by the unconscious to the Caucasus. The wise
Chinese would say in the words of the I Ching : When
yang has reached its greatest strength, the dark power
of yin is born within its depths ; night begins at midday
when yang breaks up and begins to change into yin.

A physician is in a position to see this cycle of
changes translated literally into life. He sees, for instance,
a successful business man attaining all his desires regardless
of death and the devil, and then withdrawing from
activity at the crowning point of his- success. In a short
time the man falls into a neurosis, which changes him
into a querulous old woman, fastens him to his bed, and
thus finally destroys him. The picture is complete even
to the change from the masculine to the feminine attitude.
An exact parallel to this is the legend of Nebuchadnezzar
in the book of Daniel, and the type of lunacy of Caesars
in general. Similar cases of a one-sided exaggeration in
the conscious standpoint, and of a corresponding yin
reaction of the unconscious, form no small part of the

practice of nerve specialists of our time, a time which so
over- values the conscious will as to believe that " where
there is a will there is a way ". Not that I wish to detract
in the least from the high moral value of conscious willing ;
consciousness and will should not be depreciated but
should be considered as the greatest cultural achieve-
ments of humanity. But of what use is a morality that
destroys humanity ? The bringing of will and capacity
into harmony seems to me to be something more than
morality. Morality a tout price — a sign of barbarism —
oftentimes wisdom is better ; but perhaps I look at this
through the professional glasses of the physician who
has to mend the ills following in the wake of an exaggerated
cultural achievement.

Be that as it may. In any case, it is a fact that conscious-
ness, increased by a necessary one-sidedness, gets so far
out of touch with the primordial images as to make a
collapse inevitable. Long before the actual catastrophe,
the signs of the mistake announce themselves as absence
of instinct, nervousness, disorientation, and entanglement
in impossible situations and problems, etc. When the
physician comes to investigate, he finds an unconscious
which is in complete rebellion against the values of the
conscious, and which, therefore, cannot possibly be
assimilated to the conscious, while the reverse is altogether
out of the question. One is then confronted with an
apparently irreconcilable conflict with which human reason
cannot deal except by sham solutions or dubious com-
promises. If both these evasions are rejected, one is faced
with the question as to what has become of the much
needed unity of personality, and with the necessity of
seeking it. At this point begins the path travelled by
the East since the beginning of things. Quite obviously,
the Chinese owes the finding of this path, to the fact that

he has never been led to force the pairs of opposites of
human nature so far apart that all conscious connection
between them was lost. The Chinese has this inclusive
orientation because, as in the case of primitive mentality,
the yea and the nay have remained in their original
proximity. None the less, he could not escape feeling
the collision of the opposites, and therefore he sought
out the way of life in which he would be what the Hindu
terms nirdvandva, free of the opposites.

Our text is concerned with this " Way ", and it is
the question of this same " Way " that comes up with
my patients also. There could be no greater mistake than
for a Westerner to take up the direct practice of Chinese
yoga, for then it would still be a matter of his will and
consciousness, and would only strengthen the latter against
the unconscious, bringing about the very effect which
should have been avoided. The neurosis would then be
increased. It cannot be sufficiently strongly emphasized
that we are not orientals, and therefore have an entirely
different point of departure in these things. It would also
be a great mistake to assume that this is the path every
neurotic must travel, or that it is the solution to be sought
at every stage of the neurotic problem. It is appropriate
only in those cases where the conscious has reached an
abnormal degree of development, and has therefore
diverged too far from the unconscious. This high degree
of consciousness is the conditio sine qua non. Nothing
would be more wrong than to wish to open this way to
neurotics who are ill on account of the undue predominance
of the unconscious. For the same reason, this way of
development has scarcely any meaning before the middle
of life (normally between the ages of thirty-five and forty),
in fact, if entered upon too soon, it can be very injurious.

As has been indicated, the essential tfrge to find a

new way lay in the fact that the fundamental problem of
the patient seemed insoluble to me unless violence was
done to the one or the other side of his nature. I always
worked with the temperamental conviction that in the
last analysis there are no insoluble problems, and experience
has so far justified me in that I have often seen individuals
who simply outgrew a problem which had destroyed others.
This " outgrowing ", as I called it previously, revealed
itself on further experience to be the raising of the level
of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose
on the person's horizon, and through this widening of his
view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not
solved logically in its own terms, but faded out in contrast
to a new and stronger life-tendency. It was not repressed
and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different
light, and so became different itself. What, on a
lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to
emotions full of panic, viewed from the higher level of the
personality, now seemed like a storm in the valley seen
from a high mountain top. This does not mean that the
thunderstorm is robbed of its reality ; it means that,
instead of being in it, one is now above it. But since, with
respect to the psyche, we are both valley and mountain,
it seems a vain illusion if one feels oneself to be above what
is human. The individual certainly does feel the affect
and is convulsed and tormented by it, yet at the same
time he is aware of a higher consciousness which prevents
him from being identical with the affect, a consciousness
which takes the affect objectively, and can say, " I know
that I suffer." Our text says of laziness : Laziness of
which a man is conscious and laziness of which he is
unconscious, are thousands of miles apart. In the highest
degree this is true of affect also.

Here and there it happened in my practice that a
patient grew beyond the dark possibilities within himself,

and the observation of the fact was an experience of fore-
most importance to me. In the meantime, I had learned
to see that the greatest and most important problems of
life are all fundamentally insoluble. They must be so,
because they express the necessary polarity inherent in
every self-regulating system. They can never be solved,
but only outgrown. I therefore asked myself whether
this possibility of outgrowing, or further psychic develop-
ment, was not normal, while to remain caught in a
conflict was something pathological. Everyone must
possess that higher level, at least in embryonic form,
and in favourable circumstances, must be able to develop
the possibility. When I examined the way of develop-
ment of those persons who, quietly, and as if unconsciously,
grew beyond themselves, I saw that their fates had some-
thing in common. Whether arising from without or
within, the new thing came to all those persons from a
dark field of possibilities ; they accepted it and developed
further by means of it. It seemed to me typical that, in
some cases, the new thing was found outside themselves,
and in others within; or rather, that it grew into some
persons from without, and into others from within. But
it was never something that came exclusively either from
within or from without. If it came from outside the
individual, it became an inner experience ; if it came
from within, it was changed into an outer event. But in
no case was it conjured into existence through purpose
and conscious willing, but rather seemed to flow out
of the stream of time.

We are so greatly tempted to turn everything into
purpose and method that I deliberately express myself
in very abstract terms in order to avoid causing a prejudice
in one direction or another. The new thing must not be
pigeon-holed under any heading, for then it is applied in

a way that permits mechanical duplication, and it would
again be a case of the " right means " in the hands " of the
wrong man ". I have been deeply impressed with the
fact that the new thing prepared by fate seldom or never
corresponds to conscious expectation. It is a still more
remarkable fact that, though the new thing contradicts
deeply rooted instincts as we know them, yet it is a
singularly appropriate expression of the total personality,
an expression which one could not imagine in a more
complete form.

What then did these people do in order to achieve
the progress that freed them ? As far as I could see they
did nothing (wu wei), 1 but let things happen, for, as
Master Lii Tzu teaches in our text, the Light circulates
according to its own law, if one does not give up one's
accustomed calling. The art of letting things happen,
action in non-action, letting go of oneself, as taught by
Master Eckehart, became a key to me with which I was
able to open the door to the " Way". The key is this :
we must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For
us, this becomes a real art of which few people know
anything. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping,
correcting, and negating, and never leaving the simple
growth of the psychic processes in peace. It would be a
simple enough thing to do, if only simplicity were not
the most difficult of all things. It consists solely in
watching objectively the development of any fragment
of fantasy. Nothing could be simpler than this, and yet
right here the difficulties begin. Apparently no fantasy-
fragment is at hand — yes there is one, but it is too stupid !
Thousands of good excuses are brought against it : one
cannot concentrate on it ; it is too boring ; what could
come out of it ? It is " nothing but, etc.". The conscious

1 Inaction.
90

raises prolific objections, in fact, it often seems bent
Upon blotting out the spontaneous fantasy-activity despite
the intention, nay, the firm determination of the individual,
to allow the psychic processes to go forward without
interference. In many cases there exists a veritable
spasm of the conscious.

If one is successful in overcoming the initial difficulties,
criticism is likely to start afterwards and attempt to
interpret the fantasy, to classify, to sesthetieize, or to
depreciate it. The temptation to do this is almost
irresistible. After a complete and faithful observation,
free rein can be given to the impatience of the conscious ;
in fact it must be given, else obstructing resistances
develop. But each time the fantasy-material is to be
produced, the activity of the conscious must again be
put aside.

In most cases the results of these efforts are not
very encouraging at first. It is chiefly a matter of typical
fantasy-material which admits of no clear statement as to
whence it comes or whither it is going. Moreover, the way
of getting at the fantasies is individually different. For
many people, it is easiest to write them ; others visualize
them, and others again draw and paint them with or
without visualization. In cases of a high degree of
inflexibility in the conscious, oftentimes the hands alone
can fantasy ; they model or draw figures that are quite
foreign to the conscious.

These exercises must be continued until the cramp
in the conscious is released, or, in other words, until one
can let things happen ; which was the immediate goal
of the exercise. In this way, a new attitude is created,
an attitude which . accepts the irrational and the
unbelievable, simply because it is what is happening.
This attitude would be poison for a person who has already

been overwhelmed by things that just happen, but it is
of the highest value for one who, with an exclusively-
conscious critique, chooses from the things that happen
only those appropriate to his consciousness, and thus gets
gradually drawn away from the stream of life into a
stagnant backwater.

At this point, the way travelled by the two above-
mentioned types seems to separate. Both have learned to
accept what comes to them. (As Master Lii Tzii teaches :
u When occupations come to us we must accept them ;
when things come to us we must understand them from
the ground up.") One man will chiefly take what comes
to him from without, and the other what comes from
within, and, as determined by the law of life, the one will
have to take from without something he never could
accept from without, and the other will accept from
within, things that always would have been excluded
before.

This reversal of one's being means an enlargement,
heightening, and enrichment of the personality when
the previous values are adhered to along with the change,
provided, of course, they are not mere illusions. If the
values are not retained, the man goes over to the other
side, and passes from fitness to unfitness, from adaptedness
to the lack of it, from sense to nonsense, and from reason
even to mental disease. The way is not without danger.
Everything good is costly, and the development of the
personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is
a question of yea-saying to oneself, of taking the self
as the most serious of tasks, keeping conscious of every-
thing done, and keeping it constantly before one's eyes
in all its dubious aspects — truly a task that touches us
to the core.

The Chinese can fall back upon the authority of his

entire culture. If he starts on the long way, he does what
is recognized as being the best of all the things he could
do. But the Westerner who seriously wishes to start
upon this way has all authority against him in intellectual,
moral, and religious fields. Therefore it is infinitely easier
for a man to imitate the Chinese method, and leave
behind him the dubious European in himself. Or, choosing
something less easy, he can seek again the way back to
the medisevalism of the Christian Church, and build once
more the European wall which is intended to shield true
Christian men from the poor heathen and the ethnographic
curiosities of the world. The aesthetic, or intellectual
flirtation with life and fate comes to an abrupt end here.
The step to higher consciousness leads away from all
shelter and safety. The person must give himself to the
new way completely, for it is only by means of his integrity
that he can go farther, and only his integrity can guarantee
that his way does not turn out to be an absurd adventure.
Whether a person receives his fate from without or
from within, the experiences and events of the way remain
the same. Therefore I need say nothing about the
manifold outer and inner events, the endless variety of
which I could never exhaust. Moreover, to do so would
be meaningless in relation to the text under discussion.
On the other hand, there is much to be said of the psychic
conditions that accompany the further development.
These psychic conditions are expressed symbolically in
our text, and in the very symbols which, for many years,
have been well-known to me in my practice.

D * 93

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

1. Tao

The great difficulty in interpreting this and similar

texts 1 for the European mind is due to the fact that the

Chinese author always starts from the centre of things,

from the point we would call his objective or goal ; in

a word, he begins with the ultimate insight he has set out

to attain. Thus the Chinese author begins his work with

ideas that demand a most comprehensive understanding

on our part. So much so, that a man with a critical

intellect feels he speaks with laughable pretension, or

even that he is guilty of utter nonsense, if he dares launch

a purely intellectual discourse on the subtle psychic

experiences of the great minds of the East. For example,

our text begins : " That which exists through itself, is

called Tao" The Hui Ming Ching begins with the words :

" The most subtle secret of Tao is essence and life."

It is characteristic of the Western mind that it has
no concept for Tao. The Chinese sign is made up of the
sign for " head ", and that for " going ". Wilhelm
translates Tao by Sinn (Meaning). Others translate
it as " Way ", u Providence ", or even as " God ", as
the Jesuits do. This shows the difficulty. " Head "
could be taken as consciousness, 2 and " to go ", as
travelling a way, and then the idea would be: to go
consciously, or the conscious way. This agrees with the
fact that " the Light of Heaven " which " dwells between

1 Compare Lhi Hua-yang : Hui Ming Ching, Das Buck von Bewusstsein und
Leben, (The Book of Consciousness and Life), translated into German by L. C. Lo,
CMnesische Blatter, No. 1, vol. 3, published by Richard Wilhelm.

* The head is also the " seat of Heavenly Light".

the eyes " as the " Heart of Heaven ", is used synony-
mously with Tao. " Essence and life " are contained in
the " Light of Heaven ", and according to Liu Hua-yang,
are the most important secrets of Tao. " Light " is the
symbolical equivalent of consciousness, and the nature of
consciousness is expressed by analogies with light. The
Hui Ming Ching is introduced with the verse : —

" If thou wouldst complete the diamond body without

emanations,

Diligently heat the roots of consciousness 1 and life.

Kindle Light in the blessed country ever close at hand,

And, there hidden, let thy true self eternally dwell."

These verses contain a sort of alchemistic instruction
as to a method or way of creating the " diamond body "
which also appears in our text. " Heating " is necessary ;
that is, there must be a heightening of consciousness in
order that the dwelling place of the spirit can be
" illumined ". But not only consciousness, life itself
must be heightened. The union of these two produces
" conscious life '*. According to the Hui Ming Ching,
the ancient sages knew how to bridge the gap between
consciousness and life because they cultivated both. In
this way the immortal body is " melted out ", and in this
way " the great Tao is completed ". 2

If we take Tao as the method or conscious way by
which to unite what is separated, we have probably come
quite close to the psychological content of the concept.
In any case, the separation of consciousness from life could
not very well be understood as anything other than what I
have described above as the deflection, or deracination of
consciousness. Without doubt also, the question of

1 In the Htti Ming CHng, " essence " and " consciousness " are used interchangeably.
* La, p. 104.

making the opposites conscious ("conversion"), means
reunion with the laws of life represented in the unconscious,
and the purpose of this reunion is the attainment of
conscious life, or, expressed in Chinese terms, the bringing
about of Tao.

2. The Circular Movement and the Centre

As has already been pointed out, the union of the
opposites x on a higher level of consciousness, is not a
rational affair, nor is it a matter of will, but a psychic
process of development which expresses itself in symbols.
Historically, this process has always been represented in
symbols, and to-day the development of individual
personality is still rendered visible by symbolical figures.
This fact was revealed to me through the following observa-
tions. The spontaneous fantasies of which we treated
above, become more profound and concentrate themselves
gradually around abstract structures which apparently
represent " principles ", true gnostic archai. When the
fantasies are chiefly expressed in thoughts, the results are
intuitive formulations of the dimly felt laws or principles,
and these tend to be dramatized or personified. (We shall
have to deal with these again later.) If the fantasies are
drawn, there appear symbols that are chiefly of the so-called
mandala 2 type. Mandala means a circle, more especially
a magic circle, and this form of symbol is not only to be
found all through the East, but also among us ; mandalas
are amply represented in the Middle Ages. The specifically
Christian ones come from the earlier Middle Ages. Most

1 Compare my discussion in Psychological Types, chap. v.
s Hfo* a discussion of the mandala, see Kxmstfarm und Yoga im Indischen Kult-
Mld^ Heinrich Zimmcr, Frankfurter- Verlagsanstalt, Berlin, 1926.

of them show Christ in the centre, with the four evangelists,
or their symbols, at the cardinal points. This conception
must be a very ancient one because Horus was represented
with his four sons in the same way by the Egyptians. 1
(It is known that Horus with his four sons was closely
connected with Christ and the four evangelists.) Later
there is to be found a clear and very interesting mandala
in Jacob Boehme's book on the soul. 2 This latter
mandala, it is easy to see, deals with a psycho-cosmic
system having a strong Christian colour. Boehme calls
it the " philosophical eye ", 3 or the " mirror of wisdom ",
which obviously means a body of secret knowledge. For
the most part, the mandala form is that of a flower, cross,
or wheel, with a distinct tendency toward four as the basis
of structure. (One is reminded of the telrakiys, the funda-
mental number in the Pythagorean system.) Manddlas
of this sort are also to be found in the sand drawings used
in the ceremonies of the Pueblo Indians. 4 But the most
beautiful manddlas are, of course, those of the East,
especially those belonging to Tibetan Buddhism. The
symbols of our text are represented in these mandalas.
I have also found mandala drawings among the mentally
diseased, and they were patients who certainly did not
have the least idea of any of the connections we have
discussed. 5

Among my patients I have come across cases of
women who did not draw mandala symbols but who
danced them instead. In India this type is called mandala

1 Compare Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians.

2 For Forty Questions of the Soule. 1602. first English translation.

3 Compare the Chinese concept of the Heavenly Light between the eyes.

* Matthews, The Mountain Chant. Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology, 1883-4, and Stevenson, Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjiis, Eighth Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1886-7.

5 I have published the mandala of a somnambulist in Collected Papers on
Analytical Psychology.

nrithya or mandala dance, and the dance figures express
the same meanings as the drawings. My patients can say
very little about the meaning of the symbols but are
fascinated by them and find them in some way or other
expressive and effective with respect to the subjective
psychic condition represented.

Our text promises to " reveal the secret of the Golden
Flower of the Great One ". The Golden Flower is the
Light, and the Light of Heaven is Tao. The Golden
Flower is a mandala symbol which I have often met with
in the material brought me by my patients. It is drawn
either (seen from above) as a regular geometric ornament,
or as a flower growing from a plant. The plant is
frequently a structure in brilliant fiery colours and is
shown growing out of a bed of darkness, and carrying
the blossom of light at the top, a symbol similar to that
of the Christmas tree. But a drawing of this kind expresses
more than the form of the Golden Flower; it suggests
its origin as well, since according to the Hui Ming Ching,
the " germinal vesicle " is the " dragon castle on the
floor of the sea ". This vesicle is nothing other than
the " golden castle ", the " Heavenly Heart ", the " terrace
of life", the "field of the square-inch", the "house
of the square-foot ", the " purple hall of the city of jade ",
the "dark pass", in the "space of former Heaven".
The list of richly significant names is not yet exhausted,
for the " germinal vesicle " is also known as the " border-
line of the snow mountains ", the " primordial pass ",
the " empire of the greatest joy ", the " land without
boundaries ", and " the altar upon which consciousness
and life are made ". " If a dying man does not know
this seed place," says the Hui Ming Ching, " he will not
find the unity of consciousness and life in a thousand
births and ten thousand aeons."

The beginning, in which everything is still unity,
and which therefore appears as the highest goal, lies on
the floor of the sea in the darkness of the unconscious.
In the germinal vesicle, life and consciousness (or
" essence " and " life ", hsing-ming), are still a " unity ", x
" inseparably mixed like the seeds of fire in the refining
furnace." " Inside the germinal vesicle is the fire of the
ruler." " In the germinal vesicle all wise men have
begun their work." Note the fire analogies. I know a
series of European mandala drawings in which something
like a plant seed surrounded with membranes is shown
floating in water, and, from the depths below, fire
penetrating the seed, makes it grow, and causes the
formation of a large golden flower from within the germinal
vesicle.

This symbolism refers to a sort of alchemic process
of refining and " ennobling " ; darkness gives birth to
light ; out of the " lead of the water-region ", grows the
44 noble " gold ; the unconscious becomes conscious in
the form of a process of life and growth. (Hindu Kundalini
yoga 2 affords a complete analogy.) In this way the union
of consciousness and life takes place.

When my patients produce these mandala pictures
it is, of course, not through suggestion ; similar pictures
were being made long before I knew their meaning or
their connection with the strange practices of the East,
which, at that time, were wholly unfamiliar to me. The
pictures came quite spontaneously and from two sources.
One source is the unconscious, which spontaneously
produces such fantasies ; the other source is life, which,
if lived with complete devotion, brings an intuition of
the self, the individual being. When one becomes aware

1 Hut Ming Ching, p. 105.

8 Avalon, The Serpent Power. Luzac and Co., Loudon, 1919.

of the latter, it is expressed in drawings, while the
unconscious enforces an acceptance of life. Moreover,
quite in accord with the Eastern conception, the mandala
symbol is not only a means of expression, but works an
effect. It reacts upon its maker. Very ancient magical
effects are associated with this symbol because it comes
originally from the " enclosing circle ", the " charmed
circle ", the magic of which has been preserved in countless
folk-customs. 1 The picture has the obvious purpose of
drawing a sulcus 'primigenius, a magical furrow around
the centre, the templum, or temenos (sacred precincts),
of the innermost personality, in order to prevent
" emanation ", or to guard by apotropaeic means,
deflections through external influences. Magical practices
are nothing but the projections of psychic events, which,
in cases like these, exert a counter influence on the soul, and
act like a kind of enchantment of one's own personality.
That is to say, by means of these concrete performances,
the attention, or better said, the interest, is brought back
to an inner, sacred domain, which is the source and goal
of the soul. This inner domain contains the unity of
life and consciousness, which, though once possessed, has
been lost, and must now be found again.

The union of these two, life and consciousness, is
Tao, whose symbol would be the central white light
(compare the Bardo Todol), 2 and the dwelling place of
the light is the "quadrant", or the "face", that is, the
space between the eyes. By means of these symbols it is
intended to make visible the " creative point ", or that
which has intensity without extension. It is a point
conceived to be connected with the space of the " square-
inch ", which is the symbol for that which has extension.

1 I refer to the excellent collection of Knuchel, Die Umwandlwig in Kult,
Magie und Rechtsgebrauch.

2 Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, 1927.

inn

The two together make Tao. Essence, or consciousness
(hsing), is expressed in light symbolism, and is therefore
intensity, while life (ming)> would coincide with extensity.
The first has the character of the yang principle, the latter
of the yin. The above-mentioned rmndala of a
somnambulist girl, 15% years old, whom I had under
observation thirty years ago, shows in its centre,
a " spring of life-force " without extension, which in its
emanations collides directly with its contradictory space-
principle, thus bringing the symbolism into complete
analogy with the fundamental idea of the Chinese.

The " enclosure ", or circumamMdatio is expressed in
our text by the idea of a " circular course ". The " circular
course " is not merely motion in a circle, but means, on
the one side, the marking off of the sacred precinct, and,
on the other, fixation and concentration. The sunwheel
begins to run ; that is to say, the sun is activated, and
begins to take its course, or, in other words, Tao begins
to be effective and to take the leadership. Action is
reversed into non-action ; all that is peripheral is subjected
to the command of the centre. Therefore it is said :
Movement is only another name for mastery.
Psychologically, this circular course would be the " turning
in a circle about oneself ", by means of which, apparently,
all sides of the personality become implicated. " The
poles of Light and Darkness are made to rotate ; there
comes a change from day to night."
" Es meehselt ParadieseheUe 1
Mit liefer, sckauervoUer Nacht."

Thus the circular movement has also the moral
significance of activating all the light and dark forces of
human nature, and with them, all the psychological
opposites of whatever kind they may be. That means

1 " The radiance of Paradise alternates with deep, dreadful night." (Faust }

101

nothing else than self-knowledge by means of self-incuba-
tion (Hindu tapas). A similar primordial concept of an,
absolutely complete creature is that of the Platonic man,
round on all sides and uniting within himself the two sexes.

One of the finest parallels to what has been said here,
is the description of his central experience given by
Edward Maitland, the co-worker of Anna Kingsford. 1
As far as possible I have followed his own words. He
had discovered that during reflection on an idea, related
ideas became visible, so to speak, in a long series,
apparently back to their source, which to him was the
divine spirit. By means of concentration on the series,
be made the effort to press on to their origin. He says :
" I was absolutely without knowledge or expectation when
I yielded to the impulse to make the attempt. I simply
experimented on a faculty . . . being seated at my
writing-table the while in order to record the results as
they came, and resolved to retain my hold on my outer
and circumferential consciousness, no matter how far
towards my inner and central consciousness I might go.
For I knew not whether I should be able to regain the
former if I once quitted my hold of it, or to recollect the
facts of the experience. At length I achieved my object,
though only by a strong effort, the tension occasioned by
the endeavour to keep both extremes of the consciousness
in view at once being very great."

" Once well started on my quest, I found myself
traversing a succession of spheres or belts . . . the
impression produced being that of mounting a vast ladder
stretching from the circumference towards the centre of a
system, which was at once my own system, the solar
system, and the universal system, the three systems being

1 I am indebted for this reference to my esteemed colleague, Dr. Beatrice
Hinkle, of New, York. The title reads : Anna Kingsford, Her Life, Letters, Diary,
and Work, by Edward Maitland, Redway, London, 1896. Note especially page 129 f .

102

at once diverse and identical. . . . Presently, by a
supreme, and what I felt must be a final, effort ... I
succeeded in polarizing the whole of the convergent rays
of my consciousness into the desired focus. And at the
same instant, as if through the sudden ignition of the
rays thus fused into a unity, I found myself confronted
with a glory of unspeakable whiteness and brightness, and
of a lustre so intense as well-nigh to beat me back. . . .
But though feeling that I had no need to explore further,
I resolved to make assurance doubly sure by piercing if
I could the almost blinding lustre, and seeing what it
enshrined. With a great effort I succeeded, and the
glance revealed to me that which I had felt must be
there. ... It was the dual form of the Son . . . the
unmanifest made manifest, the unformulate formulate,
the unindividuate individuate, God as the Lord, proving
through His duality that God is Substance as well as
Force, Love as well as Will, Feminine as well as Masculine,
Mother as well as Father." He found that God is two
in one like man. Beside this he noticed something that
our text also emphasizes, namely, " suspension of
breathing." He says ordinary breathing stopped and was
replaced by an internal respiration, " as if by the breathing
of a distinct personality within and other than the physical
organism." He took this being to be the entelechy of
Aristotle, and the inner Christ of the Apostle Paul, the
" spiritual and substantial individuality engendered
within the physical and phenomenal personality, and
representing, therefore, the rebirth of the man on a plane
transcending the material ".

This genuine 1 experience contains all the essential

1 Such experiences ate genuine, but their genuineness does not prove that
all the conclusions or convictions forming their context are necessarily sound.
Even in cases of lunacy one comes across perfectly valid psychic experiences.
(C. G. J.)

108

symbols of our text. The phenomenon itself, that is the
light-vision, is an experience common to many mystics,
and one that is undoubtedly of the greatest significance,
because in all times and places it appears as the
unconditional thing, which unites in itself the greatest
power and the profoundest meaning. Hildegarde von
Bingen, a significant personality quite apart from her
mysticism, expresses herself about her central vision in
a quite similar way. " Since my childhood," she says,
" I always see a Jight in my soul, but not with the outer
eyes, nor through the thoughts of my heart ; neither do
the five outer senses take part in this vision. . . . The
light I perceive is not of a local kind, but is much brighter
than the cloud which bears the sun. I cannot distinguish
in it height, breadth, or length. . . . What I see or learn
in such a vision stays long in my memory. I see, hear,
and know at the same time, and learn what I know in
the same moment. ... I cannot recognize any sort of
form in this light, although I sometimes see in it another
light that is known to me as the living light. . . . While
I am enjoying the spectacle of this light, all sadness and
sorrow disappear from my memory . . ."

I know a few individuals who are familiar with this
phenomenon from personal experience. As far as I have
ever been able to understand it, the phenomenon seems
to have to do with an acute condition of consciousness as
intensive as it is abstract, a " detached " consciousness
(see below), which, as Hildegarde pertinently remarks,
brings up to consciousness regions of psychic events
ordinarily covered with darkness. The fact that, in
connection with this, the general bodily sensations
disappear, shows that their specific energy has been with-
drawn from them, and has apparently gone toward
heightening the clearness of consciousness. As a rule, the

104

phenomenon is spontaneous, coming and going \<3n its

own initiative. Its effect is astonishing in that it affioost

"v. * » *

always brings about a solution of psychic complications,
and thereby frees the inner personality from emotional
and imaginary entanglements, creating thus a unity of
being, which is universally felt as a " release ".

The achievement of such a symbolic unity is beyond
the power of the conscious will because, in this case, the
conscious is partisan. Its opponent is the collective
unconscious which does not understand the language of
the conscious. Therefore it is necessary to have the
" magically " effective symbol which contains those
primitive analogies that speak to the unconscious. The
unconscious can only be reached and expressed by the
symbol, which is the reason why the process of individua-
tion can never do without the symbol. The symbol is,
on the one hand, the primitive expression of the
unconscious, while, on the other hand, it is an idea
corresponding to the highest intuition produced by
consciousness.

The oldest mandala known to me, is a palaeolithic
so-called " sunwheel ", recently discovered in Rhodesia.
It is likewise founded on the principle of four. Things
reaching so far back in human history naturally touch
upon the deepest layers of the unconscious and make it
possible to grasp the latter where conscious speech shows
itself to be quite impotent. Such things cannot be thought
out but must grow again from the forgotten depths, if
they are to express the supreme presentiments of
consciousness and the loftiest intuitions of the spirit.
Coming from these depths they can unite the uniqueness
of present-day consciousness with the age-old past of life.

105

PHENOMENA OF THE WAY

1. The Disintegration of Consciousness

Danger arises whenever the narrowly delimited, but
intensely clear, individual consciousness meets the immense
expansion of the collective unconscious, because the latter
has a definitely disintegrating effect on consciousness.
According to the exposition of the Hui Ming Ching, this
effect belongs to the peculiar phenomena of Chinese yoga
practice. It is said there 1 : Every thought-fragment
takes shape and becomes visible in colour and form. All
the powers of the soul reveal their traces. 2 One of the
illustrations 3 accompanying the book shows a sage sunk
in contemplation, his head circled with fire, out of which
five human figures emerge : these five split up again
into twenty-five- smaller figures. That would represent
a schizophrenic process if it remained a permanent
condition. Therefore the instructions, as though warning
the adept, say : Figures formed out of the fire of the
spirit, are only empty colours and forms. The Light of
the essence streams back to the primordial truth.

It is understandable then why the protecting figure
of the " enclosing circle " was seized upon. It is intended
to prevent " emanations ", and to protect the unity of
consciousness from being split apart by the unconscious.
Moreover, the Chinese concept points a way toward lessening

1 L.c, p. 112.

' Here belong also the recurrent memories of earlier incarnations that arise
during contemplation.

3 This picture and the others of the series in the Hui Ming Ching have been
reproduced by Wilhelm and appear in this book. (C. F. B.)

106

the disintegrating effect of the unconscious ; it describes
the " thought-figures " or " thought-fragments " as
" empty colours and shapes ", and thus depotentializes
them as far as that is possible. This idea goes through
the whole of Buddhism (especially the Mahay ana form),
and, in the instructions to the dead of the Bardo Todol, it
is even pushed to the point of explaining both favourable
and unfavourable gods as illusions still to be overcome.

It certainly is not within the competence of the
psychologist to establish the metaphysical truth or falsity
of this idea ; he must be content to determine wherever
possible what is psychically effective. In doing this, he
need not bother himself as to whether the shape in question
is a transcendental illusion or not, since faith, not science,
has to decide this point. We are working here in a field
which for a long time has seemed to be outside the domain
of science, and which has therefore been looked upon as
altogether illusory. But there is no scientific justification
for such an assumption, because the substantiality of these
things is not a scientific problem since, in any case, it
lies beyond the power of human perception and criticism,
and therefore beyond any possibility of proof. The
psychologist is not concerned with the substance of these
complexes, but with the psychic experiences. Without a
doubt they are psychic contents which can be experienced,
and which have an indisputable autonomy. They are
psychic partial-systems which either appear spontaneously
in ecstatic condition and cause powerful impressions and
effects, or else become fixed as mental disturbances in
the form of lunacies and hallucinations, thus destroying
the unity of the personality.

The psychiatrist is always prone to believe in toxins
and the like, and to explain schizophrenia (splitting of
the mind in a psychosis) in these terms, leaving the

107

psychic contents out of account. On the other hand, in
psychogenetic disturbances (hysteria, compulsion
neurosis, etc.), where the question of toxic effects and cell
degeneration cannot possibly arise, there are to be found,
in somnambulistic conditions for example, independent,
split-off complexes. Freud would explain these as due to
unconscious repression of sexuality, but this explanation
is by no means valid for all cases, because there can evolve
spontaneously out of the unconscious, contents which
the conscious cannot assimilate, and, in such cases, the
repression hypothesis is inadequate. Moreover, the
essential autonomy of these elements can be observed in
the effects of daily life which obstinately obtrude them-
selves against our wills, and then, despite our most
desperate efforts toward repression, overwhelm the ego
and force it under their control. No wonder that the
primitive sees in these moods either a state of possession,
or sets them down to the loss of a soul. Our colloquial
speech reflects the same thing when we say : " I don't
know what has got into him to-day"; "He is ridden by
the devil"; "It has him again"; "He was beside
himself"; "He behaves as if possessed." Even legal
practice recognizes a partial lessening of responsibility in
a state of affect. Autonomic psychic contents are therefore
quite common experiences for us, and such contents have
a disintegrating effect on the conscious.

But besides the ordinary, widely recognized affects,
there are subtler, more complex emotional states which
cannot be described as pure and simple affects but are
complicated partial-systems which have more of the
character of personalities the more complicated they are.
Being also constituents of the psychic personality, they
necessarily have the character of persons. Such partial-
systems appear in mental diseases where there is no

108

psychogenetic splitting of the personality (double
personality), and also, quite commonly, in mediumistic
phenomena. They are also encountered in the religious
phenomena, and therefore many of the earlier gods have
developed from persons to personified ideas, and finally
into abstract ideas. As we know, activated unconscious
contents always appear first as projections upon the
outside world. In the course of mental development,
consciousness gradually assimilates them and reshapes
them into conscious ideas which then forfeit their originally
autonomous and personal character. Some of the old
gods, after serving as carriers of astrological projections,
became mere descriptive attributes (martial, jovial,
saturnine, erotic, logical, lunatic, etc.).

The instructions of the Bardo Todol, especially, enable
us to see how greatly the conscious is threatened with
disintegration through these figures. Again and again,
the dead are instructed not to take these shapes as real,
and not to confuse their gloomy appearance with the pure
white light of Dharmakdya (" the divine body of truth ").
The meaning is that they are not to project the one light
of highest consciousness into concretized figures, and in
such a way dissolve into a plurality of autonomous
partial-systems. If there were no danger in this, and if
the partial-systems were not menacingly autonomous and
divergent tendencies, such urgent instructions would not
be necessary. If we consider the simpler, polytheistically
orientated attitude of the Eastern man, these instructions
are almost as significant as would be warnings to a
Christian not to let himself be blinded by the illusion of
a personal God, not to mention a Trinity and innumerable
angels and saints.

If tendencies toward splitting were not inherent
characteristics of the human psyche, partial-systems would

109

never have been separated off. In other words, there
would never have been either spirits or gods. That is
the reason, too, that our time is so utterly godless and
profane, lacking as we do knowledge of the unconscious
psyche, and pursuing an exclusive eult of consciousness.
Our true religion is a monotheism of consciousness, a
possession by it, with a fanatical denial of the existence
of autonomous partial-systems. In this we differ from the
Buddhist yoga doctrine, because we even deny that
partial-systems can be experienced. Since the repressed
material appears again in consciousness in unsuitable form,
a great psychic danger arises here, because the partial-
systems then behave like any other repressed contents,
and induce compulsive, wrong attitudes. This fact, which
is so striking in every case of neurosis, holds true also
for the collective psychic phenomena. In this respect,
our time is caught in a fatal error ; we believe we can
criticize religious facts intellectually ; we think, for
instance, like Laplace, that God is a hypothesis which
can be subjected to intellectual treatment, affirmation,
or denial. It is completely forgotten that the reason
humanity believed in " daemons " has nothing whatever
to do with anything external, but depends entirely on
naive awareness of the powerful inner effect of autonomous
partial-systems. This effect is not stopped by criticizing
its name intellectually, nor by describing it as false. The
effect is collectively always present ; the autonomous
systems are always at work, because the fundamental
structure of the unconseious is not disturbed by the
fluctuations of a transitory consciousness.

If one denies the existence of the partial-systems,
hoping to be rid of them by a criticism of the name, then
their effect, which nevertheless continues, cannot be
understood, and therefore they cannot be assimilated to

110

consciousness. They then become an inexplicable factor
of disturbance which one assumes to exist somewhere or
other outside. In this way, there results a projection of
the partial-system, and, at the same time, a dangerous
situation is created, because the disturbing effects are
now attributed to a bad will outside ourselves which is
perforce located at our neighbour's " de V autre cote de la
riviere ". This leads to collective delusions, instigations
to war and revolution, in a word, to destructive mass
psychoses.

Insanity is possession by an unconscious content
which, as such, is not assimilated to consciousness, nor
can it be assimilated, since consciousness has denied the
existence of such contents. Religiously expressed, the
attitude is equivalent to saying : " We no longer have
any fear of God and believe that everything is to be
measured in terms of human standards." This hybris,
that is, this narrowness of consciousness, is always the
shortest way to the insane asylum. I recommend the
excellent presentation of this problem in H. G. Wells' novel,
Christina Alberta's Father, and Schreber's Denkwurdigkeiten
eines Nervenkranken. 1

It must stir a sympathetic chord in an enlightened
European when it is said in the Hui Ming Ching that the
" shapes formed from the fire of the spirit are only empty
colours and forms ". That sounds quite European and
seems to suit our reason excellently. We, indeed, think
we can flatter ourselves at having already reached such
heights of clarity because such phantoms of gods seem to
have been left far behind. But the things we have out-
grown are only the word-ghosts, not the psychic facts
which were responsible for the birth of the gods. We are
just as much possessed by our autonomous psychic

1 Mutze, I,eipzig.
Ill

contents as if they were gods. To-day they are called
phobias, compulsions, etc., or briefly, neurotic symptoms.
The gods have become diseases ; not Zeus, but the solar
plexus, now rules Olympus and causes the oddities of
the professional office hour, or disturbs the brains of the
politician and journalist who then unwittingly release
mental epidemics.

Therefore it is better for the Western man not to
know too much about the secret insight of Eastern wise
men, because it would then be a case of the " right means
in the hands of the wrong men ". Instead of again
convincing himself that the daemon is -an illusion, the
Westerner ought to experience the reality of this illusion
again. He ought to learn to recognize these psychic
powers again, and not wait until his moods, nervous
states, and insane ideas, make clear to him in the most
painful possible way that he is not the only master in
his house. The splitting tendencies are effective psychic
personalities of a relative reality. They are real when they
are not recognized as real and are therefore projected ;
relatively real when they are related to the conscious
(in religions this stage leads to the forming of a cult) ;
but they are unreal in so far as consciousness has begun
to detach itself from its contents.

However, the latter is only the case when life has
been lived so exhaustively, and with such devotion, that
no more unfulfilled life-duties exist, and when, therefore,
there are no more desires which cannot be sacrificed
without hesitation. In a word, this detachment of
consciousness can only begin when nothing remains to
prevent an inner superiority to the world. It is futile to
lie to oneself about this. Wherever one is caught, one is
still possessed ; and, when one is possessed, it means the
presence of something stronger than oneself. (" Truly

112

from thence will't thou ne'er come forth until thou hast
paid the last farthing.") It is not a matter of unconcern
whether one calls something a " mania " or a *' god ".
To serve a mania is detestable and undignified, but to
serve a god is full of meaning, and rich in possibilities
because it means yielding to a higher, invisible, and
spiritual being. The personification enables one to see
the relative reality of the autonomous partial-system,
which, in turn, makes its assimilation possible and
depotentializes the forces of external life. When God is
not recognized, selfish desires develop, and out of this
selfishness comes illness.

Yoga teaching assumes the recognition of gods to be
something granted. Its secret instruction is therefore
only intended for him whose light of consciousness is
capable of freeing him from the powers of life, in order to
enter into the ultimate undivided unity, into the " centre
of emptiness ", where " dwells the god of utmost emptiness
and life ", as our text says. " To hear such a teaching
is difficult to attain in thousands of aeons." Obviously,
the veil of Maya cannot be lifted by a mere decision of
reason, but demands the most thoroughgoing and weari-
some preparation consisting in the right payment of all
debts to life. For, as long as one is in any way held by
the domination of cupiditas, the veil is not lifted, and the
heights of a consciousness, empty of content and free of
illusion, are not reached, nor can any trick nor any deceit
bring it about. It is an ideal that can only be completely
realized in death. Till then, there are real, and relatively
real, figures of the unconscious.

113

2. Animus and Anima

According to our text there belong to the figures of
the unconscious, not only gods, but also the animus and
anima. The word hun is translated by Wilhelm as animus.
As a matter of fact, the concept animus seems very
appropriate for hun, the character for which is made up
of the character for "■ clouds " and that for " daemon ".
Hun means, then, " cloud-daemon," a higher, spirit-soul
belonging to the yang principle and therefore masculine.
After death, hun rises above and becomes shin, the
" expanding and revealing " spirit or god. The anima,
called p'o, and written with the character for " white ",
and that for " daemon", that is, "white ghost", belongs
to the lower, earth-bound, bodily soul, partakes of the yin
principle, and is therefore feminine. After death, it sinks
and becomes kuei (daemon), often explained as the " one
who returns " (i.e. to earth), a revenant, a ghost. The fact
that the animus as well as the anima part after death
and go their ways independently, shows that, for the
Chinese consciousness, they are separable psychic factors
which have markedly different effects, and, despite the
fact that originally they are united in " one effective, true
essence ", in the " house of the creative ", they are two,
" The animus is in the Heavenly Heart ; by day it lives
in the eyes (that is in consciousness) ; at night it dreams
away in the liver." It is that " which we have received
from the great emptiness, that which has form from the very
beginning". The anima, on the other hand, is the "force
of heaviness and sadness " ; it clings to the bodily,
fleshly heart. " Moods and impulses to anger " are its
effects. " Whoever is dull and moody on waking, is
fettered by the anima."

Many years ago, before Wilhelm made me acquainted

114

with this text, I used the concept anima l in a way quite
analogous to the Chinese definition of p'o, and of course
entirely apart from any metaphysical premise. To the
psychologist, the anima is not a transcendental being but
something quite within the range of experience. As the
Chinese definition also makes clear, affective conditions
are immediate experiences. But why does one speak of
anima and not simply of moods ? The reason for this is
that affects have an autonomous character, and therefore
most people are under their power. But, as we have
seen, affects are delimitable contents of consciousness,
parts of the personality, in other words. As parts of the
personality, they partake of its character, and can there-
fore be easily personified, a process which is still going on
to-day, as the examples cited above have shown. The
personification is not an idle invention, inasmuch as the
individual stirred by affect does not show a vague, but
a quite definite, character, different from his ordinary
one. Careful investigation has shown that the affective
character in a man has feminine traits. From this
psychological fact comes the Chinese teaching of the
p'o-soul, as well as my concept of the anima. Deeper
introspection, or ecstatic experience, reveals the existence
of a feminine figure in the unconscious, therefore the
feminine name, anima, psyche, ante, Seele. The anima
can also be defined as an image, or archetype, or as the
resultant of all the experiences of man with woman.
This is the reason the anima image is projected on the
woman. Poetry, as is well known, has often described
and celebrated the anima.* The relation of the anima
to the spook in the Chinese concept is interesting to

1 I refer the reader to the comprehensive presentation in my book, Two Essays
on Analytical Psychology. Baillere, TyndaU, and Cox, London.

2 Psychological Types, chap. v.

115

parapsychologists in that the " controls " are very often
of the opposite sex.

Although I cannot but approve Wilhelm's translation
of hun by animus, as being a perfectly good philological
equivalent, none the less I had very important reasons
for choosing the expression logos for a man's mental
essence, his clarity of consciousness and reason. Chinese
philosophers are spared certain difficulties which burden
the task of Western psychologists, because Chinese
philosophy, like all mental and spiritual activity of ancient
times, is the exclusive constituent of the man's world.
Its concepts are never taken psychologically, and have
therefore never been examined as to how far they also
apply to the feminine psyche. But the psychologist
cannot possibly ignore the existence of woman and her
peculiar psychology. This is the reason I prefer to translate
hun as it appears in a man, by logos. Wilhelm in his
translation uses logos for the Chinese concept hsing, which
could also be translated as essence, or creative consciousness.
After death, hun becomes shin, spirit, which is very close,
in the philosophical sense, to hsing. Since the Chinese
concepts are not logical in our sense, but are intuitive
perceptions, their meaning can only be fathomed through
the ways in which they are used, and by noting the
constitution of the written signs, or further, by such
relationships as that of hun to shen. Hun, then, would be
the discriminating light of consciousness and of reason
in man, originally coming from the logos spermatikos of
hsing, and returning after death through shin to Tao.
Used this way the expression logos would ±>e especially
appropriate, since it includes the idea of a universal
essence, and therefore covers the fact that man's clarity
of consciousness and capacity for reason are universal
rather than something individually unique. Neither is
this character of his consciousness personal, but, in the

116

deepest sense, impersonal, and thus in sharp contrast
to the anima, which is a personal daemon expressing itself
in thoroughly personal moods (therefore animosity !).

In consideration of these psychological facts, I have
reserved the term animus for women exclusively, because
" mulier non habet animam, sed animum *\ Feminine
psychology shows an element which is a counterpart to
the anima of man. It is primarily not of an affective
nature, but is a quasi-intellectual element best described
by the word " prejudice ". The emotional nature of man,
not his " mind ", corresponds to the conscious nature of
woman. Mind makes up the " soul ", or better, the
" animus " of woman, and, just as the anima of the man
consists of inferior relatedness, full of resentment, so the
animus of woman consists of inferior judgments, or better
said, opinions. (For further details I must refer my
reader to my essay cited above, for here I can only mention
the general aspects.) The animus of the woman consists
in a plurality of pre-conceived opinions, and is therefore
far less susceptible of personification by one figure, but
appears more often as a group or crowd. (A good example
of this from parapsychology is the so-called " Imperator "-
group in the case of Mrs. Piper.) x The animus, on a lower
level, is an inferior logos, a caricature of the differentiated
masculine mind, just as the anima, on a lower level, is
a caricature of the feminine eros. Following the parallelism
further* we can say that just as hun corresponds to hsing,
translated by Wilhelm as logos, so the eros of woman
corresponds to ming, which is translated as fate, fatum,
destiny, and is interpreted by Wilhelm as eros. Eros is
an interweaving; logos is capacity for differentiation*
clarifying light; eros is relatedness; logos is discrimination
and detachment. Thus the inferior logos in the woman's

1 Compare Hyslop, Science and. a Future lAfe,
* 117

animus appears as something quite unrelated, and there-
fore as an inaccessible prejudice, or as an opinion which,
in an irritating way, has nothing to do with the essential
nature of the object.

I have often been reproached for personifying the
anima and animus as mythology does, but this reproach
would only be justified if it could be proved that in my
psychological use of them I concretized these concepts
in the mythological way. I must declare once and for
all that the personification is not an invention of mine,
but is inherent in the nature of the phenomena. It would
be unscientific to overlook the fact that the anima is a
psychic, and therefore personal, partial-system. None of
the people who make the charge against me would hesitate
a second to say : " I dreamed of Mr. X.," whereas,
speaking accurately, he only dreamed of the representation
of Mr. X. The anima is nothing but a representation of
the personal nature of the autonomous partial-system in
question. The nature of this partial-system in a
transcendental sense, that is to say, beyond the boundaries
of experience, we cannot know.

I have defined the anima in a man as a personification
of the unconscious in general, and have therefore taken it
as a bridge to the unconscious, that is, the function of
relationship to the unconscious. A statement of our
text brings out an interesting connection with this position
of mine. The text says that consciousness (that is,
personal consciousness), comes from the anima. Since
the Western mind is based wholly on the standpoint of
consciousness, it must define anima in the way I have done,
but the East, on the contrary, orientated as it is from the
view-point of the unconscious, sees consciousness as an
effect of the anima ! Without a doubt, consciousness
^is derived from the unconscious. This is something we

118

remember too little, and therefore we are always attempting
to identify the psyche with consciousness, or at least
attempting to represent the unconscious as a derivative,
or an effect of the conscious (as, for example, in the
Freudian repression theory). But, for the reasons given
above, it is essential that nothing be subtracted from
the reality of the unconscious, and that the figures of the
unconscious should be understood as quantities which
produce effects. Whoever has understood the thing meant
by psychic reality need not fear falling back into primitive
demonology because that reality is admitted. If the
unconscious figures are not accorded the dignity of
spontaneously effective factors, one becomes the victim
of a one-sided belief in the conscious, which finally leads
to a state of mental tension. Catastrophes are then
bound to occur, because, despite all one's consciousness,
the dark psychic powers have been overlooked. It is
not we who personify them ; they have a personal nature
from the very beginning. Only when this is thoroughly
recognized can we think of depersonalizing them, or of
" overcoming the anima ", as our text expresses it.

Here, again, is to be found a great difference between
Buddhism and our Western attitude of mind, and again
there is a dangerous semblance of agreement. Yoga
teaching repudiates all fantasy contents and we do the
same, but the East does it on quite different grounds.
There, conceptions and teachings prevail which express
the creative fantasy in richest measure; in fact, one
must protect oneself against the excess of fantasy. We,
on the other hand, look upon fantasy as paltry subjective
reverie. The figures of the unconscious naturally do not
appear as abstract and denuded of all accessories, but,
on the contrary, are embedded and interwoven «a a.
web of -fantasies of an infinite variety and a bewildering

119 , -

abundance. The East can reject these fantasies because
it has long ago sucked the juice from them and stored it
in condensed form in formulae of profound wisdom. But
we have never even experienced these fantasies, much
less extracted the "quintessence from them. We have
here to catch up with a large portion of experience, and,
only when we have found the sense in apparent nonsense,
can we separate the valueless from the valuable. We may-
rest assured that what we extract from our experiences
will be something quite different from what the East
offers us to-day. The East came to its knowledge of
inner things with a childish ignorance of the world. We,
on the other hand, will investigate the psyche and its
depths, supported by a tremendously extensive historical
and scientific knowledge. At this present moment indeed,
knowledge of the external world is the greatest obstacle
to introspection, but the psychological need will overcome
all obstructions. We are already building up a psychology,
a science, that is, which gives us a key to things to which
the East found entrance only through abnormal psychic
conditions.

120

THE DETACHMENT OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS

PROM THE OBJECT

By understanding the unconscious we free ourselves
from its domination. That is the basis and also the aim
of the instructions in our text. The pupil is taught how
he must concentrate on the Light of the inmost region,
and, at the same time, free himself from all outer and
inner bondage. His life-will is guided toward a conscious-
ness without content which none the less permits all
contents to exist. The Hui Ming Ching says about this
detachment : —

" A radiance of Light surrounds the world of the mind.
We forget each other, quiet and pure, all-powerful and

empty.
Emptiness is lighted up by the radiance of the Heart of

Heaven.
The sea is smooth and mirrors the moon on its surface.
The clouds vanish in blue space.
The mountains shine clear.
Consciousness dissolves itself in vision.
The disk of the moon floats solitary."

This description of the state of fulfilment pictures a
psychic condition which could perhaps best be
characterized as a detachment of consciousness from the
world, and a withdrawal of it to an extra-mundane pointy
so to speak. In this way, consciousness is both empty
and not empty. It is no longer preoccupied with the.
images of things but merely contains them. The fnfifeess
of the world which heretofore pressed upon h% loses bbs©
of its richness and beauty, but no longer rules eor^^^s
ness. The magical claim of things has

121

primordial interweaving of consciousness with the world *
has finally been disentangled. The unconscious is not
projected any more, and so the primal participation
mystique with things is abolished. Therefore, conscious-
ness is no longer preoccupied with compulsive motives,
but becomes vision, as the Chinese text very aptly says.
How did this effect come about ? (We grant at the
outset that the Chinese author was first of all not a liar ;
secondly, that he was of sound mind ; and, thirdly, that
he was even an extraordinarily intelligent man.) To
understand or explain the detachment described in the
text it is necessary for our minds to take a roundabout
way. It cannot be done by mimicry, for nothing would
be more childish than to wish to imitate and scstheticize
such a condition of the psyche. This detachment is an
effect which I know very well from my professional
practice ; it is the therapeutic effect par excellence, for
which I labour with my students and patients ; it aims
toward the dissolution of participation mystique. With
a stroke of genius, Levy-Briihl 1 has laid down the condition
he calls participation mystique as the hall-mark of primitive
mentality. As described by him it is simply the
indefinitely large remnant of non-differentiation between
subject and object, which among primitives is still of
such proportions that it cannot fail to strike the European
consciousness. In so far as the difference between subject
and object is not conscious, unconscious identity prevails.
Then the unconscious is projected into the object, and
the object is introjected into the subject, that is to say,
made part of the subjects' psychology. Plants and
animals behave like men ; men are at the same time
themselves and animals also, and everything is alive with
spectres and gods. The civilized man regards himself

1 Primitive Mentality. London: Allen and Unwin.

122

naturally as immeasurably above these things. None
the less, he is often identified with his parents for his
whole life, or he is identified with his affects, and shame-
lessly accuses others of the things he will not see in himself.
He too, in a word, has still a remnant of primal
unconsciousness, or the state of non-differentiation between
subject and object. On account of this unconsciousness,
he is magically affected by countless people, things, and
circumstances, that is to say, unconditionally influenced.
Nearly as much as the primitive, he is beset by disturbing
contents and therefore needs just as many apotropseic
charms. He no longer works the magic with medicine
bags, amulets, and animal sacrifices, but with nerve-
remedies, neuroses, " enlightenment," cults of the will, etc.

But if the unconscious can be recognized as a
co-determining quantity along with the conscious* and
if it can be lived in such a way that conscious and
unconscious (in a narrower sense instinctive) demands
are given recognition as far as possible, the centre of
gravity of the total personality shifts its position. It
ceases to be in the ego, which is merely the centre of
consciousness, and is located instead, in what might be
called a virtual point between the conscious and the
unconscious. This new centre might be called tHe self.
If such a transposition succeeds, it results in doing away
with participation mystique, and there develops a
personality who, so to speak, suffers only in the inferior
parts of himself, but in the superior regions, to carry
out the figure, is singularly detached from painful as
well as pleasing events.

The integration and birth of this superior personality
is the achievement meant by our text when it speaks
of the " holy fruit ", the " diamond body ", or of any
other sort of indestructible body. These expressions are

123

psychologically symbolical of an attitude which is
invulnerable to emotional entanglements and violent
upheavals ; in a word, they symbolize a consciousness
freed from the world. I have reasons for believing that
this is a natural preparation for death, and sets in after
middle life. Death is psychologically just as important
as birth and, like this, is an integral part of life. It is
not the psychologist who must be questioned as to what
happens finally to the detached consciousness. Whatever
theoretical position he assumed, he would hopelessly
overstep the boundaries of his scientific competence. He
can only point out that the views of our text with respect
to the timelessness of the detached consciousness, are in
harmony with the religious thought of all times and with
that of the overwhelming majority of mankind. He can
say, further, that anyone who does not think this way
would stand outside the human order, and would, there-
fore, be suffering from a disturbance in his psychic
equilibrium. As physician then, I make the greatest
effort to fortify, so far as I have the power, a belief in
immortality, especially in my older patients to whom such
questions come menacingly near. If viewed correctly in
the psychological sense, death, indeed, is not an end but
a goal, and therefore life for death begins as soon as the
meridian is passed.

Chinese yoga philosophy bases itself upon the fact
of this instinctive preparation for death as a goal, and,
following the analogy with the goal of the first half of
life, namely, begetting and reproduction, or the means
towards perpetuation of physical life, it takes as the aim
of spiritual existence, the begetting and perpetuation of
a psychic spirit-body (" subtle body "), which ensures the
continuity of the detached consciousness. It is the birth
of the pneumatic man, known to the European from

124

antiquity, but which he seeks to produce by quite other
symbols and magical practices, by faith and Christian
way of life. Here again we stand on a basis quite different
from that of the East. Again the text sounds as though
it were not very far from Christian ascetic morality, but
nothing would be further from the truth than to assume
that it is actually dealing with the same thing. Behind
our text is a culture thousands of years old, one which
has been developed out of, and beyond, primitive instincts,
and which, therefore, knows nothing about the brutal
morality suited to us as recently civilized, barbaric
Teutonic peoples. For this reason, there is lacking to the
Chinese that impulse toward violent repression of the
instincts which makes our spirituality hysterically
exaggerated and poisonous. Whoever lives his instincts
can also separate from them, and in just as natural a way
as he lived them. Any idea of heroic self-conquest would
be entirely foreign to the sense of our text, but it would
inevitably amount to that if we followed the Chinese
instructions literally.

We must never forget our historical premises. Only
a little more than a thousand years ago, we stumbled
from the crudest beghinings of polytheism into the midst
of a highly developed, oriental religion which lifted the
imaginative minds of half-savages to a height which did
not correspond to their degree of mental development.
In order to keep to this height in some fashion or other,
it was unavoidable that the sphere of the instincts should
be thoroughly repressed. Therefore, religious practice
and morality took on an outspokenly brutal, almost
malicious, character. The repressed elements are naturally
not developed, but vegetate further in the unconscious
and in their original barbarism. We would like to climb
the heights of a philosophical religion, but are, in fact,

125

incapable of it. The best we can do is to grow up to it.
The Amfortas wound and the Faustian conflict in the
Germanic man are not yet healed ; his unconscious is
still loaded with contents which must first be made
conscious before he can be free of them. Recently I
received a letter from a former patient which pictures
the necessary transformation in simple but expressive
words. She writes : " Out of evil, much good has come
to me. By keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining
attentive, and hand in hand with that, by accepting
reality — taking things as they are, and not as I wanted
them to be — by doing all this, rare knowledge has come
to me, and rare powers as well, such as I could never have
imagined before. I always thought that, when we accept
things, they overpower us in one way or another. Now
this is not true at all, and it is only by accepting them that
one can define an attitude toward them. 1 So now I intend
playing the game of life, being receptive to whatever
comes to me, good and bad, sun and shadow that are
for ever shifting, and, in this way, also accepting my own
nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus every-
thing becomes more alive to me. What a fool I was !
How I tried to force everything to go according to my
idea ! "

Only on the basis of such an attitude, which renounces
none of the values won in the course of Christian develop-
ment, but which, on the contrary, tries with Christian
charity and forbearance to accept the humblest things
in oneself, will a higher level of consciousness and culture
be possible. This attitude is religious in the truest sense,
and therefore therapeutic, for all religions are therapies
for the sorrows and disorders of the soul . The development
of Western intellect and will has lent us the almost devilish

1 Dissolution of participation mystique.
126

capacity for imitating such an attitude, apparently with
success too, despite the protests of the unconscious. But
it is only a matter of time when the counter position
always forces recognition of itself with an even harsher
contrast. A more and more unsafe situation comes about
by reason of this crass imitation, and, at any time, can
be overthrown by the unconscious. A safe foundation is
only found when the instinctive premises of the unconscious
win the same recognition as the view-points of the
conscious. No one will deceive himself as to the fact
that this necessary recognition of the unconscious stands
in violent opposition to the Western Christian, and
especially to the Protestant, cult of consciousness. Despite
the fact that the new is always hostile to the old, a deep
desire to understand cannot fail to discover that, without
the more serious application of our acquired Christian
values, the new can never gain ground.

THE FULFILMENT

The growing acquaintanceship with the spiritual
East should mean to us only a symbolical expression of
the fact that we are entering into connection with the
strange elements in ourselves. Denial of our own historical
premises would be sheer folly and would be the best way
to bring about a second uprooting of consciousness. Only
by standing firmly on our own soil can we assimilate the
spirit of the East.

Describing people who do not know where the true
springs of secret powers lie, the old master, Ku Te, says :
" Worldly people lose the roots and cling to the tree-
tops." The spirit of the East has come out of the yellow
earth, and our spirit can, and should, only come out of
our own earth. It is for this reason that I approach these
problems in a way that has often been criticized as. being
" psychologism ". If " psychology " were meant, I should
be flattered, because it is really my purpose to push aside,
without mercy, the metaphysical claims of all esoteric
teaching. Secret motives of gaining power through words
are in ill accord with the profound ignorance which we
should have the humility to confess. It is my firm
intention to bring into the daylight of psychological under-
standing, things which have a metaphysical sound, and
to do my best to prevent the public from believing in
obscure power- words. Let the convinced Christian believe,
for that is the duty he has taken upon himself, but the
non-Christian has forfeited the grace of faith (perhaps
he was cursed from birth in not being able to believe, but
only to know). Therefore, he has no right to put his

128

faith elsewhere. To understand metaphysically is
impossible ; it can only be done psychologically I there-
fore strip things of their metaphysical wrappings in order
to make them objects of psychology. In this way, I can
at least get something comprehensible out of them, and
can avail myself of it. Moreover, I learn psychological
conditions and processes which before were veiled in
symbols and out of reach of my understanding. In doing
this I am also enabled to follow a path similar to the
alleged metaphysical one, and can have similar experiences.
Finally, if there should still lurk something metaphysical
that cannot be formulated, it would then have the best
opportunity of showing itself.

To be specific in this matter, I can say that my admira-
tion for the great Eastern philosophers is as great and as
indubitable as my attitude toward their metaphysics is
irreverent. 1 I suspect them of being symbolical psycho-
logists, to whom no greater wrong could be done than to
be taken literally. If it were really metaphysics that they
mean, it would be useless to try to understand them. But
if it is psychology, we can not only understand them, but
we can profit greatly by them, for then the so-called
" metaphysical " comes within the range of experience.
If I accept the fact that a god is absolute and beyond all
human experience, he leaves me cold. I do not affect
him, nor does he affect me. But if I know, on the other
hand, that God is a mighty activity in my soul, at once
I must concern myself with him ; he can then become
even unpleasantly important, and in practical ways too,
which sounds horribly banal, like everything appearing
in the sphere of reality.

The reproach of " psychologism " applies only to a

1 The Chinese philosophers, in contrast to the dogmatists of tie West, are
only grateful for such an attitude, beeause they are masters of their gods also,
(R. W.)

fool who thinks he has his soul in his pocket ; there are
certainly more than enough such fools, because, although
we know how to speak big words about the " soul ", the
depreciation of psychic things is still a typical Western
prejudice. If I make use of the concept "autonomous
psychic complex", my public meets it with the ready-
made prejudice, " nothing but a psychic complex."
Why is one so certain that the soul is " nothing but " ?
It is as if we did not know, or else continually forgot, that
everything of which we are conscious is an image, and
that the psyche is made up of images. The same persons
who think that God is depreciated if he is understood to
be the thing which is moved, as well as the moving force
of the soul, that is an " autonomous complex ", these
persons can be so persecuted by uncontrollable affects
and neurotic states of mind that their wills and their
whole wisdom of life become pitiably inadequate. Has
the soul then shown its impotence ? Should Master
Eckehart also be reproached with " psychologism " when
he says : " God must be brought to birth in the soul
again and again ? " I think the accusation of " psycho-
logism " can only be cited against an intellect which denies
the true nature of the autonomous complex, and seeks to
explain it rationally as the result of known facts, that is,
as non-existent. This latter judgment is just as arrogant
as the " metaphysical " assertion which, overstepping
human limitations, entrusts a deity who is outside the
range of our experience with the bringing about of our
psychic states. " Psychologism " is simply the counter-
part of the over-reaching attitude of metaphysics, and
just as childish as the latter. But it seems to me far more
reasonable to accord the psyche the same validity as is
given the empirical world, and to admit that the former
has just as much " reality *' as the latter. As I see it, the

130

psyche is a world in which the ego is contained. Perhaps
there are also fishes who believe that they contain the sea.
It is our responsibility to do away with this pervasive
illusion if metaphysics is to be approached from the
psychological standpoint.

Our text gives us a metaphysical concept of this
kind, that is. one which must be understood psycho-
logically ; it is the idea of the " diamond body ", the
indestructible breath-body which develops in the Golden
Flower, or in square-inch space. 1 This body is a symbol
for a remarkable psychological fact, which, because it is
objective, appears at first projected or expressed in forms
furnished by the experiences of organic life, that is, as
fruit, embryo, child, living body, etc. This fact could
best be expressed in the words : It is not I who live, it
lives me. The illusion as to the superior powers of the

1 To a certain extent, our text leaves open the question as to whether by
a " continuation of life " a survival after death or a prolongation of physical
existence is meant . Expressions such as life-elixir and the like are insidiously obscure.
In the later additions it becomes evident that the yoga instructions are understood
in a purely physical sense. To a more primitive mind, there is nothing disturbing
in this odd mixture of the physical and the spiritual, nor do life and death begin
to stand for complete opposites as with us. (Besides the well-known ethnological
material, there are the " communications " of the English *' rescue circles " which,
with their thoroughly archaic ideas, are particularly interesting in this connection.)
The same ambiguity about immortality is also present in early Christianity where
it depends on quite similar assumptions, that is, on the idea of a " breath-body ",
the essential carrier of life. Geley's para-psychological theory would be the latest
reincarnation of this ancient idea. But since we have in our text, also, warnings
against the application of the idea in a superstitious way (for example, the superstition
about making gold), we can confidently insist on the spiritual meaning of the text.
In the conditions which the instructions seek to produce, the physical body plays
an increasingly inessential role because of being replaced by the " spirit body "
(therefore, the importance of breathing in yoga practice in general). The " breath-
body " is not '* spiritual " in our sense. It is characteristic of the Westerner that,
for purposes of knowledge, he has split apart the physical and the spiritual sides of
life, but these opposites lie together in the psyche, and psychology must recognize
the fact. The " psychic " is both physical and mental. The ideas in our text all
have to do with this " intermediate " world which seems unclear and confused to
us because the concept of psychic reality is not yet current among us, although it
expresses the actual sphere of life. Without the psyche, mind is as dead as matter,
because both are artificial abstractions ; to primordial intuitions, however, mind
is a volatile body, and matter is not lacking in soul.

131

conscious leads to the belief : I live. If, by the recognition
of the unconscious, this illusion is shattered, the
unconscious appears as something objective of which the
ego is a part. -The attitude toward the unconscious is
then analogous to the feeling of a primitive man to whom
a son guarantees continuation of life. This is a thoroughly
characteristic feeling which can even assume grotesque
forms as in the case of the old negro, who, in a rage, called
out to his disobedient son : " There he stands, with my
body, if you please, but does not even obey me ! "

The fact that the unconscious is looked upon as some-
thing in which the ego is contained, brings about a change
in inner feeling similar to that experienced by a father
to whom a son has been born, a change known to us through
the confession of the Apostle Paul : " No longer do I live,
but Christ liveth in me." The symbol " Christus " as
the " son of man " leads to an analogous psychic
experience. It is as if a higher spiritual being of human
form were invisibly born in the individual as a spiritual
body which is to serve us as a future dwelling, a body
which, as Paul expresses himself, is put on like a garment
(" Ye who have put on Christ "). Obviously it is always
an unfortunate thing to express, in intellectual terms,
subtle feelings which are none the less infinitely important
for the life and well-being of the individual. In a certain
sense, the thing we are trying to express is the feeling
of having been " replaced ", but without the connotation
of having been " deposed ". It is as if the leadership of
the affairs of life had gone over to an invisible centre.
Nietzsche's metaphor, "In most loving bondage, free," 1
would be appropriate here. Religious speech is full of
imaginative expressions that picture this feeling of free
dependence, of calm and devotion.

1 " Fret in liebevollstem Muss"
132

In this remarkable experience I see a phenomenon
resulting from the detachment of consciousness, through
which the subjective " I live ", becomes the objective
" It lives me ". This condition is felt to be higher than
the earlier one ; it is really as if it were a sort of release
from compulsion and impossible responsibility which are
the inevitable results of participation mystique. This
feeling of release filled Paul completely. It is the conscious-
ness of being a child of God which then frees one from the
spell of the blood. Also, it is a feeling of reconciliation
with what is happening, and that is the reason that the
glance of " one who has attained fulfilment ", according
to the Hui Ming Ching, returns to the beauty of nature.

In the Pauline Christ-symbol the deepest religious
experience of the West and East meet. On the one hand,
Christ the sorrow-laden hero; on the other, the Golden
Flower that blooms in the purple hall of the city of jade —
what a contrast, what an unfathomable difference, what
an abyss of history ! This is a problem fit to be the
master-work of a future psychologist.

Among the so-called great religious problems of the
present, there is to be found one which, from the attention
accorded it, might be assumed to be quite a small one,
but which, in fact, is the main problem of our day, namely,
the problem of the progress of religious spirit. 1 If that
is discussed, it is necessary to emphasize the difference
between the East and the West in their treatment of the
" jewel ", that is, the central symbol. The West emphasizes
the becoming human, and even the personality and
historicity of Christ, while the East says: *' Without
beginning, without end, without past, without future," *
Following his conception, the Christian subordinates

1 For the sake of clarity of meaning the author has amplified the above sentence
for this edition. (C. F. B.)
J But Ming Cking, p. 108.

133

himself to the superior, divine person in expectation of
his grace ; but the Eastern man knows that redemption
depends on the '* works " a person devotes to himself.
Out of the individual grows the whole Tao. The Imitatio
Christi will for ever have this disadvantage : we worship
a man as a divine model embodying the deepest meaning
of life, and then, out of sheer imitation, we forget to make
real the profound meaning present in ourselves. As a
matter of fact, it is not altogether uncomfortable to
renounce one's real meaning. If Jesus had done that, he
would have become a respectable carpenter, and not the
religious rebel, to whom the same thing would happen
to-day as happened then.

Imitation of Christ can easily be understood in a
deeper way. It can be taken as the duty to put into reality
one's best conviction, always the completest expression
of individual temperament, with the same courage and
self-sacrifice shown by Jesus. Happily not everyone has
the task of being a leader of humanity, or a great rebel ;
and so, after all, it is quite possible for each to realize
himself in his own way. Perfect honesty might even
become an ideal. Since great innovations always begin
in the most improbable places, the fact, for example, that
a man is not nearly as ashamed of his nakedness as he
used to be, might be the beginning of a recognition of
himself as he is. Hard upon this will follow the recognition
of many other things that are now strictly taboo, because
the reality of the earth will not for ever remain veiled like
the virgines velandce of Tertullian. Moral unmasking is
only one step further in the same direction, and behold,*
there stands a man as he is, and confesses himself to be
as he is. If he does this in a meaningless way, he is a
chaotic fool, but if he knows the significance of what he
does, he can belong to a higher order of man who, regardless

134

of suffering, makes real the Christ symbol. It can often
be observed, that wholly concrete taboos or magical
rites in an early stage of a religion, become in the next
stage, a matter of concern to the soul, or even purely
spiritual symbols. An external law can, in the course of
development, become an inner conviction. Thus it
could easily happen to the Protestant that the person
Jesus, now removed by centuries, could become the
superior man within himself. There would then be reached
in a European way, the psychological condition corre-
sponding to that of the " enlightened one " in the
Eastern sense.

All this is a step in the developmental process of a
higher human consciousness that finds itself on the way
toward unknown goals ; it is not metaphysics in the
ordinary sense. In the first place, and thus far, it is only
" psychology ", but also thus far it can be experienced,
it is intelligible, and — thank God — it is real, a reality
with which something can be done, a reality containing
possibilities and therefore alive. The fact that I restrict
myself to what can be psychically experienced, and
repudiate the metaphysical, does not mean, as anyone
with insight can understand, a gesture of scepticism or
agnosticism pointed against faith or trust in higher
powers, but what I intend to say is approximately the
same thing Kant meant when he called " das Ding an
sick " (the thing in itself), a " purely negative, border-
line " concept. Every statement about the transcendental
ought to be avoided because it is invariably a laughable
presumption on the part of the human mind, unconscious
of its limitations. Therefore, when God or Too is spoken
of as a stirring of, or a condition of, the soul, something
has been said about the knowable only, but nothing about
the unknowable. Of the latter, nothing can be determined!

k-i 135

CONCLUSION

The aim of my commentary is the effort to build a
bridge of psychological understanding between East and
West. The basis of every, real understanding is man, and
therefore I had to speak of human things. That must
excuse me for having dealt only with the general aspects,
and for not having entered into what is specifically
technical. Technical instructions are valuable for those
who know for example, what a photographic apparatus
or a motor is, but they are useless for anyone who has no
idea of such apparatus. Yet the Western man for
whom I write finds himself in this situation, that is,
ignorant of his own apparatus. Therefore it seemed
above all important to me, to emphasize the agreement
between the psychic conditions and the symbolism of
East and West, because, by means of these analogies,
there is opened a way to the inner chambers of the Eastern
mind. This way does not demand the sacrifice of our
own nature and does not threaten us with being torn
from our roots. Furthermore, it is not an intellectual
telescope, or microscope, offering a view which at bottom
does not concern us because it does not grip us. It is
rather the atmosphere of suffering, seeking, and striving
common to all civilized peoples ; it is the tremendous
experiment of becoming conscious, which nature has
imposed on mankind, uniting the most diverse cultures
in a common task.

Western consciousness is by no means consciousness
in general, but rather a historically conditioned, and
%eographically limited, factor, representative of only one

136

part of humanity. The widening of our own conscious-
ness ought not to proceed at the expense of other kinds
of consciousness, but ought to take place through the
development of those elements of our psyche which are
analogous to those of a foreign psyche, just as the East
cannot do without our technique, science, and industry.
The European invasion of the East was a deed of violence
on a great scale, and it has left us the duty — noblesse
oblige — of understanding the mind of the East. This is
perhaps more necessary than we realize at present.

EXAMPLES OF EUROPEAN MANDALAS

These pictures have been made in the way described
in the text, by patients during the course of treatment.
The earliest picture dates from 1916. All the pictures
have been done independently of any Eastern influence.
The I Ching hexagrams in picture No. 4 come from the
reading of Legge's translation in the Sacred Books of the
East series but they were only put into the picture because
their content seemed, to the academically educated
patient, especially meaningful in her life. No European
mandalas known to me (I have a fairly large collection)}
achieve the conventionally and traditionally established
harmony and completeness of the Eastern trumfyeku-&„
Therefore, from the infinite variety of European memMm^i,
I have made a choice of ten pictures, which, at least
when taken as a whole, ought to illustrate clearly the
parallelism between Eastern philosophy and unconscious
European ideas in their formative state.

C. G. Jung.

'* 'i,,, 137

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES

1. $ The Golden Flower represented as the most splendid of all flowers.

2. $ In the centre, the Golden Flower ; radiating out from it, fishes as fertility ,
symbols (corresponding to the thunderbolts of the lamaist mandalas).

3. 6* A luminous flower in the centre, with stars rotating about it. Around
the flower, walls with eight gates. The whole conceived as a transparent window.

4. $ Separation of the air and earth. (Birds and serpents.) In the centre a
flower with a golden star.

5. § Separation of the light, from the dark world ; the divine from the earhtly
soul. In the centre a representation of contemplation.

6. <? In the centre, the white light shining in the firmament ; in the first circle,
protoplasmic life-seeds ; in the second, rotating cosmic principles which contain
the four fundamental colours ; in the third and fourth, a creative force working
inward and outward. At the cardinal points, the masculine and feminine souls,
both again divided into light and dark.

7. $ Representation of tetraklys in rotating movement.

8. $ The child in the germinal vesicle with the four fundamental colours
included in the circular movement.

9. $ In the centre, the germinal vesicle with human figure nourished by blood
vessels which have their origin in the cosmos. The cosmos rotates around the
centre which attracts its emanations. Around the outside is spread nervous tissue
indicating that the process is going on in the solar plexus.

10. <? A mandala as a .fortified city with walls and moats. Within, a broad
moat surrounded by a wall, fortified with sixteen towers and another moat following
this wall. The last moat surrounds a central castle with golden roofs whose centre
is a golden temple.

138

APPENDIX

In Memory of Richard Wilhelm 1
By C. G. Jung

It is no easy task for me to speak of Richard Wilhelm
and his work, because, starting very far away from one
another, our ways crossed in a comet-like fashion. You
probably knew Wilhelm before I became acquainted with
him, and his life-work has a range which I have not
encompassed. Nor have I seen the China that first
shaped and later continued to engross him, nor am I
familiar with its language, the living spiritual expression
of the Chinese East. I stand, indeed, as a stranger outside
that vast territory of knowledge and experience in which
Wilhelm worked as a master of his profession. He as a
sinologue, and I a physician, should never have come
into contact with one another had we remained specialists.
But we met in a field of humanity which begins beyond
academic boundary posts. There lay our point of contact ;
there the spark leaped across that kindled the light which
was to become for me, one of the most meaningful events
of my life. Because of this experience I may speak of
Wilhelm and his work, thinking with grateful reverence
of this mind which created a bridge between East and
West and gave to the Occident the heirship to a precious
culture thousands of years old, a culture perhaps destined
to disappear.

Wilhelm possessed the mastership which is only

1 This memorial address was delivered in Munich, May 10th, 1930.

139

won by the man who surmounts his speciality, and so
his science became a concern touching all humanity —
I must not say became — it was that at the beginning and
remained so always. For what else could have freed him
from the narrow horizons of the European, of the
missionary, in fact, so that no sooner had he encountered
the secret of the Chinese soul than he perceived the
treasure hidden there for us, and sacrificed his European
prejudice on behalf of this rare pearl ? It could only
have been an all-embracing humanness, a greatness of
heart that divines the whole, which enabled him to open
himself without reservation to a profoundly foreign
spirit, and to put at the service of this influence the
manifold gifts and capacities of his mind. Reaching
beyond all Christian resentiment, beyond all European
presumption, his comprehending devotion is in itself
witness of a rarely great spirit, whereas all mediocre minds
in contact with a foreign culture either lose themselves
in blind self-deracination, or in an equally uncomprehend-
ing, as well as presumptuous, passion for criticism.
Touching only the superficialities and externals of the
foreign culture, they never eat its bread nor drink its
wine, and so never enter into the communio spiritus, that
most intimate transfusion and interpenetration which
prepares a new birth.

As a rule, the specialist's is a purely masculine mind,
an intellect to which fertilization is a foreign and unnatural
process, therefore it is an especially ill-adapted tool for
receiving and bringing to birth a foreign spirit. But a
greater mind bears the stamp of the feminine, and is
given a receptive and fruitful womb which can re-shape
what is strange into a familiar form. Wilhelm possessed
in the, highest degree the rare charisma of spiritual mother-
* Jiiood." To it he owed his unequalled ability to feel his

140

way into the spirit of the East, which made possible his
incomparable translations.

To me, the greatest of his achievements is the transla-
tion of, and commentary on, the I Ching. Before I learned
to know Wilhelm's translation, I had for years worked
with Legge's inadequate translation, and was therefore in
a position to recognize fully the extraordinary difference.
Wilhelm has succeeded in bringing to life again in a new
and vital form, this ancient work in which not only many
sinologues, but even many modern Chinese as well, can
see nothing but a collection of absurd magical formulae.
This work embodies, as perhaps no other, the spirit of
Chinese culture. The best minds of China have collaborated
upon it and contributed to it for thousands of years.
Despite its fabulous age, it has never grown old, but lives
and operates still, at least for those who understand its
meaning. That we too belong to this favoured group, we
owe to the creative efforts of Wilhelm. He has brought
this work close to us, not only through careful translation,
but also through his personal experience, on the one hand,
as a pupil of a Chinese master of the old school, on the
other, as an initiate in the psychology of Chinese yoga,
to whom the practical application of the / Ching was an
ever-renewed experience.

But with these rich gifts, Wilhelm has also bequeathed
us a task whose magnitude we may, at the present time,
suspect, but certainly cannot fathom. Anyone like
myself, who has had the rare good fortune to experience
in a spiritual exchange with Wilhelm, the divinatory
power of the I Ching, cannot for long remain ignorant
of the fact that we have touched here an Archimedean
point from which our Western attitude of mind ean be
shaken to its foundations. Truly it is no small ser^ee to
have produced for us, as Wilhelm did, such an inclusive

141

and richly-coloured painting of a foreign culture, but it
will be almost nothing in comparison with the fact that,
over and beyond this, he has infected us with a living
germ of the Chinese spirit, which is capable of making
an essential change in our world picture. We have not
remained merely admiring or critical observers, but have
become participants of the Eastern spirit in so far as we
have succeeded in experiencing the living potency of the
I Ching.

The function on which the use of the / Ching is based,
if I may so express myself, is apparently in sharp contradic-
tion to our Western, scientifically-causal, Weltanschauung.
In other words, it is extremely unscientific, taboo in
fact, and therefore out of reach of our scientific judgment,
and incomprehensible to it.

Some years ago, the then president of the British
Anthropological Society asked me how I could explain
the fact that so highly intellectual a people as the Chinese
had produced no science. I replied that this must really
be an " optical illusion ", because the Chinese did have
a science whose " standard work " was the I Ching, but
that the principle of this science, like so much else in
China, was altogether different from our scientific
principle.

The science of the I Ching is not based on the causality
principle, but on a principle (hitherto unnamed because
not met with among us) which I have tentatively called
the synchronistic principle. My occupation with the
psychology of unconscious processes long ago necessitated
my looking about for another principle of explanation,
because the causality principle seemed to me inadequate
to explain certain remarkable phenomena of the psychology
of the unconscious. Thus I found that there are psychic
parallelisms which' cannot be related to each other

142

causally, but which must be connected through another
sequence of events. This connection seemed to me
to be essentially provided in the fact of the relative
simultaneity, therefore the expression " synchronistic ".
It seems indeed, as though time, far from being an
abstraction, is a concrete continuum which contains
qualities or basic conditions manifesting themselves
simultaneously in various places hi a way not to be
explained by causal parallelisms, as, for example, in
cases of the coincident appearance of identical thoughts,
symbols, or psychic conditions. Another example would
be the simultaneity of Chinese and European periods of
style, a fact pointed out by Wilhelm. They could never
have been causally related to one another. Astrology
would be a large scale example of synchronism, if it had
at its disposal thoroughly tested findings. But at least
there are some facts adequately tested and fortified by a
wealth of statistics which make the astrological problem
seem worthy of philosophical investigation. (It is assured
of recognition from psychology, without further restric-
tions, because astrology represents the summation of all
the psychological knowledge of antiquity.)

The fact that it is possible to construct, in adequate
fashion, a person's character from the data of his nativity,
shows the relative validity of astrology. But the birth
never depends on the actual astronomical constellations,
but upon an arbitrary, purely conceptual time-system,
because by reason of the precession of the equinoxes, the
spring point has long ago passed on beyond zero degree
Aries. In so far as there are any really correct astrological
deductions, they are not due to the effects of the constella-
tions, but to our hypothetical time-characters. In other
words, whatever is born or done this moment of time, has
the qualities of this moment of time.

143

This is also the fundamental formula for the use of
the I Ching. As is known, one gains knowledge of the
hexagram characterizing the moment by a method of
manipulating sticks of yarrow, or coins, a method depend-
ing on purest chance. As the moment is, so do the runic
sticks fall. The only question is : Did the old King
W&n, and the Duke of Chou, in the year 1000 B.C., interpret
the accidental picture made by 'the fallen runic sticks
correctly or not ? As to this, experience alone can decide.

At his first lecture at the Psychological Club in
Zurich, Wilhelm, at my request, demonstrated the
method of consulting the I Ching, and, at the same time,
made a prognosis, which, in less than two years, was
fulfilled to the letter and with unmistakable clearness.
This fact could be further confirmed by many parallel
experiences. However, I am not concerned with
establishing objectively the validity of the prophecies of
the I Ching, but take it as a premise, just as my deceased
friend did. Therefore, I am only going to discuss the
amazing fact that the qualitas occulta of the time-moment
became legible by means of the hexagram of the I Ching.
One is dealing with a relationship of events, not only
analogous to astrology, but essentially related to it. The
birth corresponds to the sticks that are thrown, the
constellation to the hexagram, and the astrological
interpretation arising from the constellation corresponds
to the text appropriate to the hexagram.

The type of thought built on the synchronistic
principle, which reaches its high point in the I Ching, is
the purest expression <j£ Chinese thinking in general.
With us, this thinking has been absent from the history
of philosophy since the time of Heraclitus, and only
reappears as a faint echo in Leibnitz. However, in the
time between, it was not extinguished, but continued to

144

live in the twilight of astrological speculation, and remains
to-day at this level.

At this point the / Ching touches the need of further
development in us. Occultism has enjoyed in our times
a renaissance which is really without a parallel. The
light of the Western mind is nearly darkened by it. I am
not thinking now of our seats of learning and their
representatives. I am a physician and deal with ordinary
people, and therefore I know that the universities have
ceased to act as disseminators of light. People have
become weary of scientific specialization and rationalistic
intellectualism. They want to hear truths which do not
make them narrower but broader, which do not obscure
but enlighten, which do not run off them like water, but
pierce them to the marrow. This search threatens to
lead a large, if anonymous, public into wrong paths.

When I think of Wilhelm's achievement and
significance, I am reminded of Anquetil du Perron, the
Frenchman who brought the first translation of the
Upanishads to Europe just at the period when, for the
first time in almost 1,800 years, something unheard-of
occurred, and the goddess of reason drove the Christian
Godhead from the throne in Notre Dame. To-day, when,
in Russia, there occur things far more unheard-of than
at that time in Paris, when, in Europe itself, the Christian
symbol has reached such a condition of feebleness that
even the Buddhists think the right moment has come for
a mission in Europe, it is Wilhelm, who, as though chosen
from the soul of Europe, brings us a new light from the
East. This is the cultural task to which Wilhelm felt
himself called. He recognized how much the East could
give toward the healing of our spiritual need.

A beggar is not helped by our giving him outright
more or less generous alms, although he may desire it.

145

He is much better helped if we show him the way to free

himself permanently of his need by work. Unfortunately,

the spiritual beggars of our time are all too inclined to

accept the alms of the East in specie, that is, to appropriate

unthinkingly the spiritual possessions of the East and to

imitate its way blindly. That is the danger about which

it is impossible to give too many warnings, and the one

which Wilhelm also felt very clearly. Spiritual Europe

is not helped by what is merely a new sensation or a new

titillation to the nerves . What it has taken China thousands

of years to build cannot be stolen by us. We must learn

to acquire it in order to possess it. What the East has

to give us should be merely a help in a work which we still

have to do. Of what use to us is the wisdom of the

Upanishads or the insight of the Chinese yoga, if we desert

the foundations of our own culture as though they were

outlived errors, and, like homeless pirates, settle with

thievish intent on foreign shores ? The insight of the

East, above all, the wisdom of the I Ching, has no meaning

when we close our minds to our own problems, when we

lead artificially arranged lives on the basis of conventional

prejudices, when we veil from ourselves our real human

nature with all its dangerous, subterranean elements,

and its darkness ? The light of this wisdom only shines

in the dark, not in the electric searchlight of the European

theatre of consciousness and will. The wisdom of the

2" Ching, has originated from a background, whose horror

we can faintly suspect if we read of Chinese massacres, of

the sinister power of Chinese secret societies, of the

nameless poverty, the hopeless filth and vices, of the

Chinese masses.

We need to have a correctly three dimensional life
if we wish to experience Chinese wisdom as a living thing.
Therefore, we first have need of European truths about

146

ourselves. Our way begins in European reality and not
in yoga practices which would only serve to lead us astray
as to our own reality. We must continue Wilhelm's work
of translation in a wider sense if we wish to show ourselves
worthy pupils of the master. Just as he translated the
spiritual treasure of the East into European meaning, we
should translate this meaning into life.

As you know, Wilhelm translated the central concept
of Tao by Meaning. To translate Meaning into life, that
is, to realize Tao, would be the task of the pupil. But
Tao will never be created with words and good precepts.
Do we know exactly how Tao develops in us or around us ?
Is it by imitation, or by reason, or by acrobatics of the
will ? We feel that all these things are ridiculously
incommensurate with the task. But where shall we
begin with this task ? Will Wilhelm's spirit be in us or
with us if we do not solve this problem in a truly European
way, that is in reality ? Or must this be at the last only
a rhetorical question whose answer is lost in applause ?

Let us look toward the East : there an overwhelming
fate is fulfilling itself. European cannon have burst
open the gates of Asia ; European science and technique,
European worldly-mindedness and cupidity, flood China.
We have conquered the East politically. Do you know
what happened when Rome overthrew the near-East
politically ? The spirit of the East entered Rome. Mithra
became the Roman military god, and out of the most
unlikely corners of Asia Minor, came a new spiritual
Rome. Would it be unthinkable that the same thing
might happen to-day and find us just as blind as were
the cultured Romans who marvelled at the superstitions
of the Christoit It is to be noted that England and
Holland, the two main colonizing powers in Asia, are also
the two most infected with theosophy. I know that our

147

unconscious is full of Eastern symbolism. The spirit of
the East is really before our gates. Therefore it seems
to me that the realization of the Meaning, the search for
Tao, has already become a collective phenomenon among
us, and that to a far greater extent than we generally
think. For example I take, as a very important sign of
the times, the fact that Wilhelm and the indologue Hauer,
were asked to lecture on yoga at this year's congress of
German psychotherapists. Let us realize what it means
for a practical physician who deals directly with a suffering,
and therefore receptive, person, to- send out a feeler
toward an Eastern therapeutic system I Thus the spirit
of the East penetrates through all our pores and reaches
the most vulnerable places of Europe. It could be a
dangerous infection, but perhaps it is also a remedy.
The Babylonian confusion of tongues in the Western world
has created such a disorientation that everyone longs for
simpler truths, or at least for general ideas which speak,
not to the head alone, but to the heart as well, which
give clarity to the spirit, and peace to the restless pressure
of the feelings. Like the ancient Romans, we again to-day,
are importing every form of exotic superstition in the
hope of discovering therein the right cure for our disease.
Human instinct knows that all great truth is simple,
and therefore the man who is weak in instinct assumes
great truth to exist in all cheap simplifications and
platitudes. Or, as a result of his disappointment, he falls
into the opposite error of thinking that great truth must
be as obscure and complicated as possible. We have
to-day a gnostic movement in the anonymous masses,
which exactly corresponds psychologically with the move-
ment 1,900 years ago. Then, as to-day, lonely wanderers
like the great Apollonius, spun the spiritual threads from
Europe back to Asia, perhaps to remotest India.

148

Looked at from such a historical perspective, I see
Wilhelm in the guise of one of those great gnostic inter-
mediaries who brought the cultural heritage of Asia into
contact with the Hellenic spirit, and thereby caused a
new world to rise out of the ruins of the Roman Empire.
Then, as now, insipidity, inflated ideas, bad taste, and
inner unrest prevailed. Then, as now, the continent of
the spirit was inundated, leaving only single peaks project-
ing like so many islands from the vague flood. Then, as
now, all sorts of devious paths beckoned the spirit and the
wheat of false prophets bloomed.

In the midst of the clanging disharmony of the
concert of European opinion, to hear the simple language
of Wilhelm, the messenger from China, is a real blessing.
One can see from it that it has been schooled in the plant-
like naivete of the Chinese mind, which is able to express
profound things in simple language ; it discloses something
of the simplicity of great truth, the ingenuousness of deep
meaning, and it carries to us the delicate perfume of the
Golden Flower. Penetrating gently, it has set in the soil
of Europe a tender seedling, for us a new presentment of
life and Meaning, after all the spasm of arbitrariness and
presumption.

Towards the foreign culture of the East, Wilhelm
displayed an extraordinarily large amount of modesty,
something unusual in a European. He erected no barrier
against it, no prejudices, no assumptions of knowing better,
but instead, opened heart and mind to it. He let himself
be gripped and shaped by it, so that when he came back
to Europe, he brought us not only in his spirit, but also
in his nature, a true image of the East. This deep trans-
formation was certainly not won by him without great
sacrifice, because our historical premises are so entirely
different from those of the East. The keenness of Western

149

consciousness and its glaring problems had to soften
before the more universal, more equable nature of the
East, and Western rationalism with its one-sided
differentiation had to yield to Eastern breadth and
simplicity. To Wilhelm, these changes certainly meant
not only a shifting of intellectual standpoint, but also
an essential rearrangement of the component parts of
his personality. The picture of the East he has given us,
free as it was from ulterior motive and any trace of
violence, could never have been created in such com-
pleteness by Wilhelm, had he not been able to let the
European in himself slip into the background. If he had
allowed East and West to clash against each other within
him with an unyielding harshness, he could not have
fulfilled his mission of providing us with a true picture of
China.

Wilhelm fulfilled his mission in every sense of the
word. Not only did he make accessible to us the dead
treasures of the Chinese mind, but, as I have pointed out,
he brought with him its spiritual root, the root that has
lived all these thousands of years, and planted it in the
soil of Europe. With the completion of his task, his
mission reached its climax, and, unfortunately, its end
also. According to the law of enantiodromia, so clearly
understood by the Chinese, there grew out of the close
of the one phase the beginning of its opposite. Thus, in
its culmination, yang goes over into yin, and position is
resolved into negation. I came near to Wilhelm only in
the last years of his life, and then I could observe how,
with the completion of his life-work, Europe and the
European man drew closer and closer to him, beset him
in fact. At the same time, there developed in him the
feeling that he might be standing on the brink of a great
change, a transformation whose nature it is true he could

150

not clearly grasp. He only knew that he was faced
with a decisive crisis. His physical illness went parallel
with this spiritual development. His dreams were filled
with Chinese memories, but they were always sad and
dismal pictures that hovered before him, a clear proof
that the Chinese contents had become negative.

There is nothing that can be sacrificed for ever. Every-
thing returns later in a changed form, and where so great
a sacrifice has once taken place, when the sacrificed thing
returns, there must be ready a healthy and resistant body
in order to be able to meet the shock of a great transforma-
tion. Therefore, a spiritual crisis of such dimensions often
means death if it takes place in a body weakened by
disease. For now the sacrificial knife is in the hand of him
who has been sacrificed, and a death is demanded of him
who was once the sacrificer.

As you see, I have not withheld my personal ideas,
because if I had not told how I experienced Wilhelm,
how else would it have been possible for me to speak
of him ? Wilhelm's life-work is of so great a value to me
because it explains and confirms so much of what I had
been seeking, striving for, thinking, and doing, in order
to meet the psychic ills of Europe. It- was a tremendous
experience for me to hear through him in clear language,
the things that had been dimly shadowed forth to me
from out of the confusion of the European unconscious.
As a matter of fact, I feel myself so very much enriched
by him that it seems to me as if I had received more from
him than from any other man, and this is the reason I do
not feel it a presumption if I am the one to offer, on the
altar of his memory, the gratitude and respect of all of us.

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Full text of "The Secret Of The Golden Flower By Richard Wilhelm And Carl Jung"

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